


Just Look At What We Have Made

by Sotano



Series: Krakoa is for two very specific mutants [1]
Category: Marvel (Comics), X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Blackmail, Dawn of X, Diplomacy, House of X/Powers of X, M/M, Magneto and the Professor are dads to a whole island of mutants, Reign of X, X of Swords, lots of character mentions, no I'm serious every character on Krakoa is getting mentioned
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:27:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 46,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24719773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sotano/pseuds/Sotano
Summary: Behind the panels of House of X/Dawn of X. Everything historical mentioned is more or less canon, synthesized. A new nation is being born. Two of its founders are enjoying the chance to be on the same side. They're learning what mutant society was meant to be, and it seems like the answer is very gay.I've added notes about what's canon to the end of the chapters. Was that necessary? No. Did anyone ask me? Also no. Is comics canon hilariously dramatic and extremely queer? Yes, mercifully. Chapter 5 is an interlude, and extra scenes that didn't match the rating are added on in the series.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Series: Krakoa is for two very specific mutants [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1819501
Comments: 102
Kudos: 70





	1. Something resembling a proposition at the UN and a proposal on Krakoa

Charles was speaking to the collected Assembly, brought together at short notice after his message to the world, and Magneto worked off his latent impatience by pacing the halls of the UN building. It could conceivably be called surveillance work, or perhaps bodyguarding.

He was dressed in a white Krakoan suit, which was beginning to _mean_ something, in that a consensus was being formed on certain ley lines of mutant fashion. Mutants, it seemed, would be dressed to the nines in their bold new world. Teasingly to the point of costume, rich to the point of obscenity, unique to an almost wasteful degree. The suit was the work of the renowned mutant designer, Carnation, though Erik was at first hesitant about wearing white. On his costume it worked well, but on a suit? Erik had complained that he felt like he was dressed for a wedding, to which Charles gave one of his most diplomatic laughs. The Mutant Master of Magnetism was a little cross with himself, over how easily he'd caved for that little sound, but it seemed Mr. Carnation was right. The clean, clear white contrasted with Xavier's intricately ornate black and contributed to a new, deeply amusing confusion among humans. Their eyes swept from Charles to Magneto, and back again. They no longer knew which one to fear.  
  
It did make Erik smile. Humans on the whole, he thought, had devastatingly poor memories, and even poorer senses of history.  
That confusion was probably part of why Erik was stopped in the middle of his pacing by a beady-eyed bureaucrat with an American accent. The bureaucrat, shifty and anxious, asked if Erik might have a moment to discuss Sabretooth with his colleague from the American division. Erik noticed he had telepathic dampeners on.  
"We're willing to negotiate," the American added, breathlessly.  
Erik stood a good foot taller than the man, and eyed him with a look he knew from decades of experience conveyed utter, total condescension. It broke into what he was sure would be a predatory smile. He pinged Charles quickly, and got back a slightly amused, telepathically delivered better-see-what-they've-got handwave.  
"You're willing to negotiate, are you?" Erik demurred. "How generous."  
The man led him towards a well-lit, official looking meeting room, empty but for two guards conspicuously carrying plastic weapons, and a young man, already sat down. The man, Erik recognized as Mr. Marshall. They'd met in Jerusalem about a week ago, and Erik had perhaps toyed with the human a little past what was strictly necessary. Reilly Marshall smiled at Magneto, and made no effort to get up. He too was wearing the idiotic-looking ceramic dampeners designed to keep Charles out. He reeked of human supremacy and youthful cockiness.  
  
"Magneto," the man purred. "Glad you deigned to join us."  
Erik barely heard the man and sat down smoothly, adjusting his cuffs in a way that might have hinted at violence. This did feel a bit like a shake-down, he thought, and had the sudden desire to laugh.  
"If we might get on with it, gentlemen? You've assumed wrongly that I am amenable to having my time wasted by questions surrounding the fate of poor Sabretooth, for whom I take no responsibility."  
  
Marshall's eyes narrowed. "We want him. And you'll give him to us, and more besides." Briefly, Erik wondered if 'we' meant Orchis or America. He supposed it hardly mattered. The human signaled, and the other man, the little one with the bulging eyes, pulled out two manila files. Ah, so that was how it was going to be.  
Erik barked out a laugh, unable to stop himself.  
The first would undoubtedly be a list of demands, how trite. And the second would be whatever threat backed those demands. Erik made no move to acknowledge either, folding his arms and leaning back. He'd been through more of these situations than either of the considerably younger men across the table from him would ever know.  
  
"In the interest of saving time, I'll summarize. You want, if I might guess, the locations of all Krakoan gates, as well as the island itself, which you have rather embarrassingly failed to locate thus far. In addition to this, you would like Sabretooth to remain in your custody, which I'm afraid is quite out of my hands, though it's the smallest of your concerns. More importantly, I'm assuming you'd like more information on Krakoan drugs, which cuts to the heart of why you're currently wasting my afternoon. I'll admit, I'm almost interested to see what makes you think you have me over a barrel, as it were."  
Marshall's eyes narrowed, but his smile remained. "I don't suppose the threat of violence from my colleagues means much to you?" he asked over steepled fingers.  
"It doesn't," Erik agreed. "Perhaps even less than the international legality of threatening an Ambassador on UN grounds means to you."  
"Well," Marshall said, grinning. He gestured again, and the other American left, stumbling over his chair. Erik disinterestedly watched him leave. "Now that we understand each other, I'd really rather you had a look at the second of those files."  
"I'd rather I was on Krakoa, with my daughter, miles from the nearest human." Erik wasn't going to make things easy, and if his time was to be wasted today he'd be damned sure Marshall's would be too. The young man only smiled.  
"And how many miles would that be, exactly?" he asked, feigning reaching for a pen.

  


Whatever it was, it was clearly good. The young 'diplomat' wouldn't be so at ease if it weren't something that could at least hurt. Erik didn't bother acknowledging his little joke, though. The man wasn't half as clever or as dangerous as he thought he was, and Erik knew well. The only thing humans like him were exceptional for was their capacity to be told who to hate. No, the only thing in this room that warranted his attention in the slightest would be behind the innocuous manila cover.  
  
He turned it over with a bored flick of the wrist and schooled his expression. The folder contained a series of photographs, and some supporting documentation. Phone records, ID information, things to validate what the photos might suggest. The first photo was innocent enough, it was of himself and Charles Xavier on a balcony some sixty years ago. God, perhaps longer than that. Erik's well-trained paranoia knew exactly where this was headed, of course. His young counterpart's hand hung dangerously low on Charles' back.  
  
Morbid curiosity warred with a profound distaste. They were so young, he thought wryly. Even five years later and neither Charles nor Erik would have slipped like this. He'd have sensed the metal and the shutter, and Charles would have read the cameraman. He moved the first photograph aside, splaying the following three photographs over the folder. The triptych put him firmly into the category of distaste.  
"Filth," he hissed, snapping the folder shut. He must have blanched, though almost certainly not for the reason the human might have expected.  
"It is, isn't it? My God, I mean, everyone suspects it. It's practically a joke in the department. But who knew we had proof just lying around in a box somewhere in the anticommunist division, yellowing?"  
Marshall pulled the folder across the table a little, opening it to look with a horrible grin. Bodies, in various states of undress, in various stages of frantic coupling. "What was that, you were saying, about a barrel? What is it you've got your friend over, I wonder? Can't quite make it out."

  


Erik had composed himself a little better by now, though. "The exact nature of my relationship with Charles Xavier is none of your concern."  
"No, it isn't. But it might be the concern of some of your colleagues. How will it look to your former Brotherhood that you've had a... closer relationship to the illustrious Charles Xavier than you like to pretend? For that matter, it might be the concern of many of the nations you're currently trying to finalize relations with."  
Magneto laughed bitterly. "Of course. Not homophobes yourselves, but a little too happy to play the part. I know your kind."  
Marshall sighed. "I don't really care whether you think I'm a homophobe, Erik."  
"Is the use of my human name supposed to anger me? Is this supposed to frighten me? Playing on my presumably very comprehensive psychological file? Did you imagine me quaking in place, imagining little pink triangles? Surely you'd know better, Marshall. Surely after last week you'd recognize your betters."  
"Intimidation, Erik? It's a bit late for that."  
"Well," Erik said, with a sigh. "If that's all."  
  
He made a move to get up, which elicited quite a reaction. An almost stumbling reaching for pathetic plastic guns, until Marshall's hand went up.  
"Please, Magneto, sit," he said, gesturing back down. "We can talk about this like men."  
  
Erik sat, and crossed a leg over his lap. He gestured for Marshall to continue, disinterestedly, checking a nail. This was growing... tiresome.  
"You're not going to let this go public, your precious island won't survive it."  
"Go public?" Erik asked, smiling icily. "Is that photograph going to be on the cover of tomorrow's Hello Magazine?" He gestured towards one of the more offensive of the bunch, a clear shot almost pornographically composed.  
  
"Something like that," he said. "Now, would you stop pretending you're not going to cooperate? I'm asking for some information on some fucking flowers, and then you can return to your daughter, and we'll let you have your island, like last time--"  
"--You _bombed_ the island, last time," Erik interjected, unimpressed. The humans still didn't understand, this wasn't going to be anything like Genosha. The drugs were the very least of the differences. He thought to himself: while you slept, Reilly Marshall, the world changed.  
Reilly Marshall was clearly tiring of Erik's pedantry. "Nevertheless," he said, hand pinching the bridge of his nose. "Nevertheless, you're going to cooperate. There's a reason you've kept this relationship a secret, and you're going to protect that secret now."  
"You've made a mistake. You can't even begin to understand the 'relationship' you're so keen on exploiting."  
"It's fucking," Marshall said easily. "What's to understand?"  
"Ah, so this is what you meant when you said we'd talk like men. How fortunate I'm not one of those small creatures."  
"Although," Marshall continued, as if he hadn't heard Erik, "I've been wondering. Is it strange, fucking a man in a w--"  
  
Erik's watch flew off his hand, latching itself around the human's throat. At the same time, metal he'd gathered outside their meeting room burst in through the reinforced windows and pinned the security men.  
"There is absolutely nothing you could possibly threaten or bribe me with that could ever make me betray my people," he said, voice level. The human grasped at his throat, and Erik watched the display for a moment. "I don't enjoy repeating myself, Marshall."  
He waited, as if the man might reply, but all he did was gasp for air.  
  
Erik got up, stretching his neck.  
"Did you think those tacky little circles protected you from him? My helmet doesn't even keep him out, these days. Oh, it might take him a little longer, which put me in the unfortunate position of having to suffer your presence, but Charles gets through in the end. Not that you're going to remember that information. You're not going to remember much of anything about today that resembles the truth, I'm afraid."  
  
Erik wandered over to the door, but paused with his hand on the knob.  
"Actually," he said, wandering back to the table. He flicked open the file again, looking through the photographs. "These are very good, in a sense," he murmured. "Whoever took them I'm sure is long dead. A pity their talents were wasted on myself and Charles."

  


His gaze returned to that first photo. Charles' face was illuminated, smiling warmly, caught just before he might have taken another sip from the glass he was raising. His eyes were trained on Erik, and they were so young then and yet Charles had almost a wistful smile. As if he knew what they would be to each other. As if he could somehow see coming the decades of pain and destruction and bitterness, and he was choosing it anyways, just for that night. Erik's face was out of the shot, and he was free to project. That steady arm bridging them, the heat even during the night was enough that Charles' linen shirt was half-unbuttoned. Perhaps he was feeling particularly sentimental.  
"Would you mind terribly if I kept this?" he asked, without looking up.  
  
He didn't wait for a response. All three had long since stopped struggling, and by the time Erik did manage to drag his eyes away, they had the all-too-familiar glassy-eyed stare that told him Charles had things well to hand. He folded the image carefully, and put it into the inside pocket of the suit.  
As he closed the door, he couldn't help but smile. By God, blackmailing him with the worst kept secret in all of mutantdom. He wondered if the young man knew how many CIA agents had played the intimidation game with them over the years.

By now, Xavier was done with his speech, and Erik headed to the grand lobby outside the assembly room. The reception there was anything but a party. There was no sugarcoating it: this had been a takeover. The mutants ruled in Krakoa, and none could deny them their home now. Humans parted as he moved through the space, rightfully nervous. Not for the first time he wished he had Charles' power, just to know exactly what horror stories he conjured up for these people.  
* _You don't want to know_ *, Charles said in his mind. He turned and saw Charles at the table, being given two flutes of champagne. If that wasn't an invitation...

Erik didn't bother asking about the little humans with their blackmail. He and Charles seemed to be on the same wavelength about it. At this point, though, Erik did almost just want it all out.  
I am not ashamed of what I am, he thought loudly and clearly enough to ensure Charles would hear it, without necessarily broadcasting it to him.

He made his way over, scanning the rest of the crowd. Emma seemed to also be interested in Charles; Erik felt the White Queen's familiar mental presence.  
"Charles," he nodded.  
"Ah, Erik," Charles said, smiling warmly and handing Erik the second glass, "I've just had the most interesting conversation with Emma Frost." He tipped his glass at her from across the room, and she returned the toast.  
"Stranger things have happened."  
"Erik, dear, stop it. The satisfaction is quite literally rolling off of you in waves." Charles gave him a hidden little smile. The massive, bulking Cerebro helmet almost disguised it, but not from Erik.  
"All thanks to you, Charles," he bowed his head discreetly.  
"Don't diminish your part in this brave new world, Erik, I won't let you."  
Erik raised his hands in surrender.  
  
"I wouldn't dream of it. But you should know, I'm not the one they fear anymore. When they look at me, their eyes dart back to you." Erik gestured around the room at the many eyes on them. "You really are the proverbial wolf among the sheep now, Charles. I know that was never the role you wanted for yourself."  
Charles shrugged. "As long as you're by my side, I'm sure I can handle a little unpopularity."  
"Such sentiment, from such a young man," Erik mocked, sipping his champagne.  
Charles simply ignored him, speaking in turns to whoever they needed to have a word with. Humans, when necessary. Erik enjoyed their discomfort, caught between the two of them, but didn't bother speaking. He'd done rather enough talking to humans today. In the crowd, though, he noticed something. The younger mutants were all making their exit. Charles stifled a yawn.  
  
"Charles," he said plainly.  
"I know. There's to be some kind of celebration. On the island."  
Erik's attention perked up.  
"Celebration? While the adults are stuck here?"  
"I've been reliably informed they're still only setting up."  
  
"We should go home," Erik lightly hinted. "This setting is getting a little tired. It's the company, I think."  
"I suppose we should be there," the Professor mused, looking to be convinced. "In case they do anything irresponsible."  
"Just so," Erik nodded. "I remember what used to happen to that house of yours when you took a long weekend's vacation."  
Charles laughed, genuinely.  
  
"Long weekend? I believe I'd characterize those little vacations as kidnappings, Erik, if memory serves."  
"Is that what you told the children?" Erik asked, grinning wolfishly, knowing he'd won a point. "No wonder poor Scott has such strange ideas about romance."  
It was said jokingly, but a little part of Erik melted at Charles' cheer. He leaned in, as if to convey something secretive. This meant the eyes on them redoubled. Listening devices and their handlers perked up. "Charles," he whispered. He ran a hand up Charles' side, still grinning. For his part, Xavier drank champagne as if nothing was happening. "Let's get out of here," Erik offered, hand now firmly on Charles' hip. The rich fabric of Charles' black suit was covered in swirling Krakoan designs, and Erik could feel a hint of metal in the trimmings. He let his fingers dig into the fabric, just enough to betray intent.  
"Erik, such scandalous behavior for an ambassador," Charles said into his glass. Erik couldn't see his friend's eyes, but he was betting on 'mirthful'.  
"I can be more explicit if you'd prefer. Let's go home so I can--"  
"--Yes, thank you, Erik, you're broadcasting it all quite loudly."  
Erik just shrugged and took Charles' hand, planting a light kiss on it. "After what you did today, no one's going to buy that prim and proper act, my dear. You've thoroughly scared the humans. It won't be made any worse by knowing that we're--"  
"--And what are we, exactly? We're always quite bad at that part."  
  
Erik conceded that point. The mask his friend wore was beginning to be a nuisance. How could he make anything sound right, when he wasn't even looking at Charles' face? Still, he let his telepathic walls down a little, and projected the vast emotional range that he felt for Charles. It was a strange feeling, like he was saying something that couldn't fit itself out of his mouth. It was welling up out of him, choking the room.  
"Don't make me say it here," he pleaded finally, "not around these humans."  
How could he say what they were to each other? What he wanted them to be?

Charles looked him up and down, and Erik felt the tendrils of Charles' power and felt Charles' own emotional response. Charles' remarkable power thrummed through through the air like a storm front, so forcefully that Erik could scarcely believe the crowd couldn't feel it. There was the tension of about sixty different competing emotions; the tragedy/love/desire/frustration/unwilling trust they could never shake. Finally, Charles nodded. The remaining mutant delegation made their exit, on a silent cue from the Professor. He wondered, momentarily, what the humans thought of his little display with Charles.  
* _You really don't want to know,_ * came the amused response, knowing full well Erik very much did.

Arriving on the island, through the gate, they were greeted with cheers. Happy mutants buzzing about the island, the busiest Erik had seen them. Many stopped, though, and gathered expectantly. Erik coughed.  
"Charles, I think you're meant to say something."  
The Professor gave him the telepathic equivalent of an eyeroll.  
"Mutants," he said, his voice carrying uncannily with the assistance of his powers. Cheers erupted again. "I've given the humans my speech, now I'll give you yours." He smiled out at them, the cheers still hadn't broken. "Fear not," he said with a wry grin, "it's much shorter." A slightly drunken laughter from the crowd.  
"I'll simply say this, mutant brothers and sisters," he began again, nodding to Erik at his co-opting. Erik inclined his head, deferring to Charles' wisdom on the matter. "This is an historic day, and well worth celebrating. We have fought our first battle for our new home, and won without bloodshed. Welcome, then, to this new era; to its new battles and triumphs; but most importantly," he paused, gesturing around them, "welcome home."  
  
Charles sounded unimaginably proud. Erik was going to take him aside when he noticed the telltale green hair headed towards him.  
"Father," Lorna said, giddy. "We're setting up a stage by the Southeastern coastline, I could use some help. That is," she said, suddenly noticing that Charles had remained, "if I'm not interrupting."  
Erik glanced towards Charles, who shook his head.  
"Nonsense, my dear. I've monopolized enough of Erik's afternoon, and I'm being summoned by our poor, neglected friend Krakoa. Erik, I'll see you tonight."  
Magneto nodded respectfully, and took his daughter's arm. She was grinning ear to ear, Erik realized. He was as well.

Night had come quickly. The whole island was erupting into celebration, and rightfully so, Charles thought. The pink fireworks were the color of telepathic mutant powers, a nice nod from Jubilee. They'd changed from the suits into the costumes, human clothing never really seemed to fit Krakoa. Erik personally found it hard to complain, considering what his companion had decided was appropriate Krakoan attire. Besides, he always wound up missing the cape.  
He had made his speech, just to Charles. They stood together, from the high point near the House of M, overlooking their children. Just look at what we've made, Erik had said, and what they'd made was all around them, filled to the brim with joy. Now they sat contentedly together in the unbelievably comfortable Krakoan grass. Silent, amiable, drinking champagne and playing chess.  
Still, something was niggling at Erik, Charles could always tell even with the helmet on. Erik was just one of those people who wore their emotions on their sleeves, as much as he thought of himself as aloof. Or perhaps Charles had gotten used to reading Erik with the helmet on over the years.  
  
"What is it, old friend?" Charles asked.  
"It's--won't you take that blasted t--" but Erik cut himself off with a gloved hand smacked over his lips.  
Charles laughed heartily. "No, please. Finish that sentence. You were going to tell me to take off my ridiculous helmet. Always struggled with irony, didn't you, old friend?"  
  
Erik recovered from his little slip-up, though Charles was by no means done laughing. He tried a different tack. "I'll show you mine if you show me yours?"  
"Now how on earth am I meant to interpret that, Erik?"  
Erik rolled his eyes indulgently and casually lifted his helmet off. It hovered above them. Charles' gaze, still under Cerebro, followed it.  
"I really do still hate that thing, just a little. Sorry, I can't help it. It's still wise to keep around, of course I understand, considering who's on the island." Charles took his helmet off, setting it down gently next to them.  
  
Erik froze, really froze, and peered into Charles' eyes. Damnable new body. God, he looked unchanged, vulnerable, utterly heartbreakingly young. He was the man in the photograph, tired and beautiful. He looked like the ghost that haunted Erik. It was too much. Erik launched his helmet into the bushes somewhere, and the amused, private grin Charles saved only for him showed itself once more. Charles made a move in the game Erik had almost forgotten about.  
  
"You're so much easier to read now, Charles," Erik mused.  
"Because I took off my helmet, or because I've had a few glasses?"  
"Because your face is young. It's a little rude, Charles. Hurry up and age like the rest of us."  
Charles laughed.  
"I'd missed this, dear. We've been far too busy."  
"I thought you were done with games."  
They made eye contact. Erik felt Charles skimming over the surface level of his mind, with the unasked question, checking for any hurt. He let his eyes fall closed, and enjoyed the sensation of his friend's presence.  
  
"No, you've done nothing wrong. I missed this too," Erik agreed.  
"There are a great many things I've done wrong, my friend."  
"Don't start feeling guilty for what we have between us, Charles, or we'll never stop. Don't you ever get tired of living in your head?"  
"Constantly."  
  
"You're welcome in mine," he said. Game forgotten, he was losing anyway, Erik leaned over and cupped Charles' face with his palm. Charles melted into the touch, and Magneto was shockingly content watching the play of emotions across his friend's face. Finally, Charles' eyes fluttered open and he looked at Erik almost analytically. This part of their relationship; where they had to constantly guess where the boundary was for each of them; Erik was so tired of it.  
"Erik. Earlier this afternoon, at the UN summit. You had something you didn't want to say. I'm afraid now I'd really rather like to hear it."  
Erik drew back in surprise, but saw the way Charles' jaw was set. Saw the hopeful edge to their eye contact. He nodded, and kissed his old friend slowly. Strange how familiar this part was. It felt inevitable, and he felt a little lost in it. Before it could escalate, Erik drew away. He pressed their foreheads together, with his hand on the back of Charles' neck. A moment passed, then another. He closed his eyes. The mutant master of magnetism was, momentarily, frozen.  
"Marry me," he said, and kissed Charles again before there could be an answer.

He felt Charles' surprise before anything else, but when one surprises a telepath the floodgates can tend to open. Charles was drawing away, trying to pull his walls back up, and Erik felt the Professor's concern and the fear that he'd hurt his friend. Erik pulled him in closer and dredged up all that trust he had in Charles. The utter, unshakable faith that * _you're not going to hurt me, old friend_ *. All of it. He never wanted Charles to hold back. And Charles didn't. At first it was just a sheer brick wall, Erik felt it meet his mind. It almost doubled him over, and he found that physical sensation was becoming difficult to parse. He increasingly had no idea which part of the dervish of excitement/relief/trust/joy/love was his and which was Charles'. He opened his eyes and the scenery of Krakoa was going mad as well.  
  
Memories blended with what they were doing now. Erik was fairly certain that was his own doing; Charles always said his mind was more memory-orientated than most. They were in the savage lands, and then the jungle melted away into Charles' office, and all the times Erik had come in through the window. Stolen intimacy in a back alley in Haifa, a seedy bar in Madripoor, a dungeon cell. A satellite; its regal bedroom looking at the stars. A cell on the same satellite. The ruins of Genosha; quiet dinners and orange sunsets and being captured. Imprisoned in the jungle, at the other end of the earth. He remembered all of their impossibly long history.  
There were, on balance, quite a lot of dungeon cells. Charles laughed again, he felt it on the corner of his lips. The sensation brought him back down a little, and he could feel Charles gather himself up.  
  
"What was that?" Erik asked, slightly out of breath.  
"That," Charles responded, pulling the walls back up, "was a minor telepathic event."  
"Incredible," Erik sighed, quite in love.  
"I think I did get rather lost," Charles admitted. "I'm still adjusting to my powers, even after all these years. Well, you know."  
Erik nodded. "We're only getting stronger. I still feel like I haven't reached my peak."  
  
Charles took him by the front of his white costume and kissed him soundly.  
"Am I to take that as an answer?"  
"Take it as what you'd like, my answer is yes, of course."  
Erik smiled contentedly, his hand played at Charles' collar. Suddenly, he pulled up. He'd forgotten something, in the house. He waved a hand, and after a few moments, a photograph came careening through the underbrush, attached to a metal tie clip. He handed it to Charles, who laughed, both at the sentimentality of Erik's keepsake and the foolishness of the US government.  
  
"My God, you were right," Charles said. "It's actually quite good. We should start a collection."  
Now it was Erik's turn to laugh.  
He felt the closeness of that memory to them now. After all that time, they'd made their way back to how they felt about each other in the beginning. And it was all the better for how hard they'd worked for it.  
"I feel the same way, my friend," Charles said.  
  
The island was still erupting, rolling waves of joy and fervor eclipsed even Charles' wildest hopes. Their people were home, and he was so excited to see what mutantdom would choose to be. Erik was proud, and though there would probably always be a part of his mind dedicated to the fear and paranoia that stalked his happier moments, it had for now lost the ability to drive him, to bleed into everything else. They watched their children enjoy paradise, and that was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of the Canon Stuff from Chapter 1:
> 
> Marshall was the guy Magneto scared the bejesus out of with the 'you are all wolves' speech, and while the other ambassadors were all shown at the UN emergency summit, he was missing from the scene, as was Magneto.
> 
> Those telepathic dampeners are new human tech, though it's not clear if Charles can get past them I think with enough time it's probable. In X-Men #4, he reads the mind of a would-be assassin who scratched at his momentarily. Also I always liked that part in God Loves, Man Kills where Charles straight up bypasses Magneto's helmet and Magneto realizes he usually holds back.
> 
> Charles is in a young body because of how he was brought back from the dead. It turns out the Shadow King had been keeping a copy of Charles in the astral plane and messing with him for fun. In Astonishing X-Men, Fantomex chooses to stay behind in the Astral Plane, once they'd taken care of the Shadow King, and gives Charles a free body, which Charles remade to approximate himself. Yes, it's weird and unethical. No, we're not going to unpack all of that.
> 
> The throwaway line about how young Charles 'haunted' Erik for a bit is canon. In the Magneto solo run in 2014, he keeps seeing Charles.
> 
> The party on Krakoa was in several issues of House of X and Powers of X, and cameos in Fallen Angels and the new Excalibur. Charles and Erik seemed to spend most of it chilling on a clifftop. Erik said a lot of really brilliant stuff, but what stands out to me was "Just look at what we have made" and "I am not ashamed of what I am", which I mention a lot.
> 
> I based their history flashbacks on mainly Claremont (including Excalibur for Genosha) and X-Men: TAS


	2. Conversations on nation-building and resurrection

In the following afternoon, they assembled the first Quiet Council of Krakoa. It went much along the lines that Charles had expected it to, and Erik noticed that despite quite a lot of back and forth, Charles' allies did always seem to have the final say.

"Make more mutants," Erik groaned. "Your children are going to be the death of me, Charles. If I were drinking anything I'd have spat it out."  
They were walking away from the meeting. Charles ensured that they weren't being overheard, nor followed as they made an abrupt turn heading towards Moira's space in the island's core. The dense jungle sheltered them as they walked.  
  
"He's right, though," Charles pointed out unhelpfully, "if we are to have any hope of surviving we need to populate."  
"Yes, but one doesn't need to say it. And certainly not in such frank terms. And certainly not in the company of one's own mother."  
"Mystique is hardly the boy's mother. Biology, much as I care for it, isn't everything. If anyone, I'd say Jean had more of a hand in raising Nightcrawler than she ever did."  
Magneto hummed his agreement. Mutants so rarely had the 'nuclear' family ideal, and to Erik's mind, they were stronger for it. Mutants find their own family, he thought, and they will find it here.  
  
"Still, it's so... I don't know. Heteronormative." Erik said. The pair had come to a stop at a particularly dense part of the underbrush. A little metal ball floating around Erik's side sharpened to a blade and slashed a way through. Charles mulled that around in his head for a moment before responding.  
  
"I very much doubt we'll be having children the normal way in every case, with the Five having started the ball rolling on extranatal incubation. It's only a matter of time. Someone will have to be the first; I might imagine that Rogue might want an alternative to the... usual methodology. If not, Shatterstar and Rictor may be likely candidates," Charles mused.  
  
Erik frowned, considered the implications. "Rictor is back on the island now, isn't he? After Apocalypse's unlikely assistance. We should be wary of anything approaching genetic programming, Charles. I don't have to remind you."  
Charles shook his head. They entered the metal tunnel hidden from view; Charles' retina scan acting as one key password with Erik's pin as the other.  
"And we will be. It's like I said before. We live or die on this. There are no other ways."  
"In a sense, I'm grateful," Erik said. Charles raised an eyebrow, under his mask, and even without telepathy Erik knew. "It brought us together. We'll make it work." He gave Charles a meaningful look. They both knew why. He spared a though for Sabretooth, somewhere in suspension deep beneath the island, and he hoped to God they were right.  
  
Before they reached the nexus where Moira was undoubtedly waiting for them, Erik put a hand on Charles' shoulder. They exchanged a glance, oddly obscured by their helmets.  
"I'm with you, old friend."  
Only you, Erik didn't have to add.

\--------------------------

Soon, Charles Xavier had died and been revived, and Erik couldn't help but draw religious parallels. Perhaps Charles had been a personal religion for quite some time. He was reminded of one of Quentin Quire's godawful tee shirts, and wasn't it true that Charles had indeed died for their sins? He had emerged, finally, and Storm wisely decided to allow Erik to determine the man's state. It was frankly a profound relief that Jean was more than capable of performing the resurrection, in conjunction with the Five, even with a mind as complex as Charles. His face was older now, mercifully. Less like the mangled body Erik had raced to only a few days before, the bloodied remains of a face staring up into the heavens when Erik removed Cerebro. Less like the visions he used to get, begging him to do the right thing. Charles had to appear in front of the humans, to smooth things over, and then they were free to return to the House of X in peace.

Charles, in a new body, stumbled a few times now that he was away from the cameras. Each time, Magneto was almost preternaturally there. He opened Charles' door with a practiced ease, and Charles was greeted by his modest cottage home. It looked lived-in, the fire was crackling and the kettle had been moved. He glanced at Erik, expectant.  
"I stayed here for the past few nights," he said, shrugging. "I might have, er, wrecked House of M while you were gone. Slightly."  
An image came unbidden of steel beams wrenching through the walls, flickering and dying lights, and finally a darkness.  
"I'm glad," Charles said, cutting past it. "It's nicer to come back to this than an empty house."  
Erik took off both of their helmets and put them on the table. It was a little silly, Charles reflected, to have Cerebro sitting around. He ought to make something to put it in here.

"I held your lifeless body," Erik said casually, letting himself fall gracelessly onto the couch. "Again."  
"And you made a sword," Charles added. "Now I have to figure out where to put a sword."  
Erik looked up from his undignified position, smile playing crookedly on one corner of his mouth. "I think death gave you a sense of humour, Charles. Do stop lightening the mood, it's wreaking havok with my angst."  
  
Erik sighed, and his weariness momentarily overtook his bitter humor. Charles put on some pajamas and left a pair on the coffee table as a strong hint for Erik, which the mutant did not take. Instead he lazily swept his gaze over Charles.  
"Well, at least you're back to an appropriate age. Young Charles was quite dashing, but I was getting tired of feeling like some kind of pervert."  
Charles just huffed, pushing Erik aside to make room on the couch. Erik acquiesed, only to lie his head in Charles' lap once he'd settled.  
  
"Erik, dear, your emotional state is... quite loud."  
"I think I'm allowed to be just a little terrified," he snapped suddenly. "How many times have you died for me, Charles?"  
Charles put his hand in Erik's hair, Erik's eyes fluttered shut.  
"It doesn't matter now," Charles offered.  
"I believe you. Truly, I do. Didn't stop me from grieving for you all week, I was hopeless with it. I... you know what you bring out in me."  
"We've never been good handling that," Charles agreed. Erik's white hair was shockingly thick.  
  
"So many times, I've seen you die. On the beach. Charles, I remember it so vividly. You'd think I'd have learned to let these things fade, after all these years, but they all feel like fresh wounds."  
Another half-memory lanced between their connection. Erik, unable to control his heartbeat, moving like a blur above the island, too late. Too late, and he's alone again, and panic consumed everything.  
Charles' face hardened. His friend had suffered so much it was hard to excise from his other memories. Charles could feel it in his head, and he could feel Erik wondering occasionally if there was anything else.

"I'll never let anything hurt you again." Charles said. This time, he could say it. He could mean it. Nothing would be allowed to hurt them. Erik gave a weak smile at his friend's sincerity.  
"Mein Gott, old friend. It was only a couple months ago that you showed up at my fortress, young again and decidedly not dead. I can't handle another few years like the last few."  
"It was that bad?"  
"I shaved my head," Erik said simply, rolling his shoulders.  
Charles gasped. "You didn't."  
"That was only the first year, Charles. You don't even want to know."  
"Erik, I know we're... whatever it is we are to each other, but if you do anything to your hair again I'm leaving you."  
Erik barked out a laugh.  
  
"I do actually want to know what happened while I was gone. From your perspective, that is. I know the broad, utterly confusing strokes. Captain America was a Nazi?"  
Erik made a dismissing gesture. "You'll be happy to know I made him stay well away from your time displaced children, by any means necessary. He was not pleased. What else? I killed Red Skull. A lot of Nazis, while you were gone, it seems. He was... well there was that unpleasant business with your brain. He..."  
There was something unsaid, there, and Charles knew what it was. There was always a bit of work involved, with Erik and emotions, but by God was Charles prepared to do it.  
  
"He said I never loved you."  
Erik looked up in surprise.  
"Farouk let me see."  
Erik nodded. Farouk, the Shadow King, had kept Xavier in the dark for a long time, in the astral plane, but occasionally he was allowed to see the state of the world. It was like surfacing to catch a breath before being pulled back underwater, and it was often its own kind of torture.

"It made another Onslaught. Because you were in there somewhere, in a way," Erik said, pained. "I... I could have brought you back, but I couldn't breathe. It was vile. The thought of you, in there, somewhere, for Red Skull to dissect and... use. I couldn't think."  
Charles nodded. "Farouk told me Onslaught had returned. He thought it would be painful, but I was just so relieved that you were alive. That infuriated him. He thought he couldn't get inside of me, that it was the last part of myself I hadn't yielded. What he didn't know is I just didn't understand my reaction, myself."  
Erik leaned up to kiss Charles, who met him halfway almost without thinking about it. "Never again," he said. "Some mutants aren't going to be brought back."  
"Probably not," Charles ceded. "Although I hope..."  
"Yes, Charles, I know you do."  
  
Charles smiled gently. He threaded his fingers through Erik's hair and stared into the fireplace.  
"Before I died, at the celebration. Are you... do you still..." He was trying to keep his voice level, but even Charles had limits.  
"Charles, I won't hide who I am. Not here, in the home you and I built."  
Charles nodded.  
  
"Jean knows," he said. "I'm afraid my little... lapse the other night was rather obvious."  
Erik groaned. "I still have to talk to Lorna. She's suffering under the baffling delusion that I'm a straight man."  
"I would have trusted Lorna to have a little more sense than that."  
"She's going to be furious too. She's going to want a wedding."  
  
Charles laughed heartily at Erik's terror of the concept. The Mutant Master of Magnetism, the wolf of the revolutionary guard who struck fear into the hearts of humans the world over, utterly brought low by the concept of a public ceremony. He sent the thought over, and Erik's eyes opened. He shifted himself to something resembling upright.  
"Are you saying you _want_ a wedding, liebling?"  
Charles rolled his eyes. "I assure you, Erik, the idea is as distasteful to me as it is to you. As far as I'm concerned, we've been married for three or four decades, depending on who's counting. You are, however, going to have to tell your daughter."  
Erik sank back down. "And David?"  
  
Charles tensed, but relaxed just as quickly, which was perhaps even more telling. "Yes, I suppose I'll try to find a way to tell David."  
"Why are we such terrible fathers?"  
"You know, it's probably an ego thing."  
"Easy for you to say, you've managed to raise a good thirty of them well, compared to failing just the one. Your ratio is fine. Why do they keep giving us these second chances?"  
Charles sighed, leaning back.  
"Well," he said, "life's a bitch and I've got an island."  
Erik laughed entirely unexpectedly. "I'm putting that in your eulogy next time. Terrible father; sugar daddy to all of mutantdom."  
"Don't even joke, you don't want to _know_ what Bobby was planning on saying in my eulogy in the Times, the death before last. Do you know, when I read his mind half the time I can only hear the song Ice Ice Baby? It's a better anti-telepath technique than the upper echelon of SHIELD have."  
"Did I say you only failed one of your children?" Erik asked drily. "I'm surprised you don't get elevator music."  
"Small mercies."  
  
The weariness in Erik's posture had melted a little. Charles hadn't realized he'd resumed playing with his hair. Now _that_ was a weakness these supremacists ought to try to exploit. Magneto was, it had to be said, unfairly handsome. Especially in his old age. Charles was sure there were things that he wouldn't sacrifice to be allowed to touch Erik, but he was having some difficulty thinking of them.  
"Erik, dear, you're falling asleep."  
"Hmm," he assented. A shockingly unaware smile was plastered over Erik's face.  
The bed was starting to feel very far away. Charles let his eyes close.

\------------------

Magneto and Apocalypse walked in formation behind Professor Charles Xavier, who looked back one final time at the expensive hotel in Davos. The humans were in a state of total disarray. Those that had plotted assassination were humiliated, and those that simply wanted to gauge the so-called mutant threat were left with enough well-founded panic that they'd be ineffective for months. Magneto caught the surprisingly self-satisfied smile on the sliver of Xavier's face peeking out under Cerebro. Apocalypse probably had higher considerations; he looked as serious and out-of-place as usual. Scott and Gorgon, battered but not bloodied, signalled through Charles' telepathic communication that they'd be at the helicopter shortly.  
  
Charles and Erik's personal line of telepathic communication; running on what essentially amounts to a lower frequency; was going haywire. Charles had to keep Erik's _very_ personal thoughts from being broadcasted to the other mutants while also keeping himself in check. He relayed as much to Erik.  
* _Excellently done, my dear._ *  
* _That was,_ * Erik said through their channel, * _the single most enjoyable afternoon of my life._ *  
* _You seem to have some rather pressing ideas as to how to improve it,_ * Charles teased.  
* _God, putting those humans in their place. Apocalypse was excellent. YOU were excellent. Let's do it again. No, wait, let's never speak to humans again. No--_ *  
He looked back and smiled at Erik, who was forcibly schooling his expression into its usual austere condescension. Charles could feel the downright predatory grin that was being suppressed. In fact, Erik had gone without his helmet for days now and they hadn't left each other's presence. With the intervening factors of Charles' powers strengthened by the portable Cerebro and getting used to his new body; Charles was having patent difficulty disentangling his own thoughts from Magneto's.  
* _It's a shamelessly enjoyable sensation,_ * Erik contributed, * _how do telepaths prevent themselves from devolving into sex pests?_ *  
Charles rolled his eyes. Or, he didn't, he just sent the image of it to Erik. After all, the Cerebro helm masked his face.  
Neither of them could help it. They'd started moving in unison, finishing each other's words. They had started openly using each other's powers. That was especially enjoyable; Charles simply thought about lifting his arm and Magneto's arm shifted. He thought about moving metal, and Erik obliged. The helicopter propellers began to move, and Scott was the last onboard. Charles checked that his son was more or less fine, and they left for Krakoa.

On the island, neither needed to communicate before heading towards their cliffside lookout. The second they were in the privacy of their place in the Krakoan woods, Charles took Erik by the lapels and kissed him soundly.  
  
"Utterly marvelous, old friend. That was something to behold," Charles said emphatically. "We should have sold tickets."  
Erik only grinned easily. Charles took his helmet off, and Erik found his cape somewhere in the house five minutes away from them, feeling it out with his powers. Charles shot him a look, and he acquiesced, grabbing a bottle of champagne kept in a metal cooler for just such occasions.  
  
"Someone should really stage an intervention with you," Erik said. "We've gone through bottles of the stuff in the last few weeks. Think of your poor, neglected tea set."  
"There have been too many causes for celebration. Logan's gone through _crates_ of alcohol. I hear Tempo is working on a homegrown solution, so that we don't bankrupt our young state trying to keep up."  
"The glamours of nationbuilding," Erik sighed, loosening his tie.  
  
The champagne arrived, pleasantly cool, and Erik poured them both a glass in the two flutes stored in the same bucket. They'd nailed their little routine down to a science.  
"That Island reference was interesting," Charles mused. "You know, I've always struggled with whether that novel was homophobic or sexually progressive."  
"Probably a poorly navigated mix of the two," Erik agreed. "Yes, I remember. The, ah, young prince and the militaristic dictator of the next island over."  
Charles hummed thoughtfully. "What really interests me, though, is... Forgive me, Erik, but were you paraphrasing The Merchant of Venice?"  
"You caught that, did you?"  
  
Charles was aware of his friend's complicated relationship with that particular work of Shakespeare. Sometimes, Erik might use it almost in an aspirational sense, a stick to measure up to. But Charles had seen the way he occasionally even still recoiled at the bitterness of the dialogue, the gleeful persecution of a Jewish man.  
  
"You were practically verbatim. 'The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.'" Charles quoted dutifully. That speech, in the courtroom scene, was tantamount to a manifesto for Erik. "I only mean, you know what we're doing here. You know how it's going to look to some. We're going to _be_ the conspiracy the far right has always pretended to exist. Is it wise, to draw comparisons to Shylock right now?"

Erik shrugged, an elegant roll of the shoulders that showed off lean muscle under his well-fitted suit. Charles was glad for the helmet during the Davos luncheon, or he might have been caught watching Erik's fiery speech with a particularly dopey gaze rather unbecoming of a man of his age.

"They're going to take one look at me and draw conclusions no matter what I say. If they're so desperate for a Jewish conspiracy, I'm almost glad to give it to them. I've always been happy to play the part of the monster, so long as those who are afraid deserve it. You know that."  
Charles thought about his response for a moment, accepting it for what it was: the negotiations of a man still struggling with so many competing identities it made even Charles' head spin. They drank and watched the island unfurl.  
  
"All this talk of illuminati business, I wonder if we'll be seeing a lawsuit from Mr. Richards," Erik joked.  
Charles made a face.  
"I really wouldn't put it past him. They do copyright these silly names, nowadays, you know."  
"I would have thought you two would get on famously. Verbose, egotistical, family men, ridiculously overeducated." Erik's smile was verging on insufferable, but it was quite infectious.  
  
"Honestly, I've never really liked any of them. I once thought Sue migh make a good mentor for Jean, but it didn't work out. They're too..." he trailed off, waving his hands in a vague gesture.  
"Perfect," Erik supplied.  
"Exactly. Even the Thing, poor man. It's been so long since they've been regular people, their perspective is warped. Especially Reed. The man's a control freak, and that's coming from _me_. I worry for Franklin."  
  
"You worry for everyone," Erik said. "It's your favorite pastime."  
Charles waved the comment aside.  
"Even so. I know logically that I should be concerned about a mutant that powerful, but I look at that boy and all I can think is that it must be very difficult to be the mutant son of Reed Richards and Sue Storm."

"Well, the mutant son of Sue Storm, at any rate," Erik said into the rim of his glass. Charles swatted him on the knee.  
"Erik, dear, don't be crass."  
"His hair is jet black," Erik said. "The rest are blonde. He's a powerful mutant, all of his siblings are human. You could know in an instant. Surely Namor, or good lord, _Victor_ , has a--"  
"--Oh don't try to pretend that you're looking to do a favor for either of them, darling, it stretches belief. You're simply an incorrigible gossip, and if it got out, your supervillain credibility might erode."  
  
Erik conceded the point.  
"I must admit, I'm looking forward to putting them in their place," he said. "I know I'm not supposed to _enjoy_ it, now that I'm playing at being a good man, but they've had it coming for a long time. On top of everything else, they're gentrifying Brooklyn," he said, with a level of derision Charles found almost impressive.  
  
"You'll regret saying that. Things always get too complicated with that family. And you _are_ a good man," Charles said insistently.  
"I am _not_ ," Erik said, mock-aghast. He clutched imaginary pearls. "And you wouldn't be half as mad for me if I were."  
Charles' eyebrow shot up, and Erik silently dared him to disagree. Instead, he refilled their glasses. They were pleasantly buzzed, now, after a long afternoon's... Well, 'work' might be an exaggeration. Confrontation.  
  
"It would be funny if he was Victor's, though," Erik said.  
"It would be funny if he was Victor's," Charles agreed.  
"You only agree because you're already scheming about Latveria."  
"Latveria worries me. Doom isn't someone to take lightly, and though he's always been more or less all right about the mutants in his own country, you have to admit there's a strangeness there."  
  
Erik thought about Victor Von Doom and his particular brand of egoism.  
"It reminds me of my experience with Iron Man," he mused. "Supposedly great men who think of themselves as having worked for their gifts resent mutants, even if they don't want to think they do. So they try their hardest not to think of mutants as a race. It betrays a fragility."  
"Never mind the fact that their intelligence comes in part from genetics," Charles agreed. "Humans need to stop competing so much."  
  
"Careful, Charles," Erik said, playful. "That sounds like Communism. Next thing you know, some juvenile photographer is going to be following you around for the CIA, and decades later you're ushered into a side room to be blackmailed by some vile little thirtysomething with no sense of history."  
"Good grief," Charles said. "They do seem to be getting younger all the time."  
"Whereas you get younger in short bursts," Erik agreed.  
"Erik, I hate to belabor a point but I _am_ a telepath. I know _exactly_ how much you enjoyed my brief stint as younger Charles."  
"And you know exactly how glad I am to be rid of him."  
Charles tipped his head to the side in concession and gave Erik a fond look.

Things were going well. Perhaps too well, and Charles felt an uncertainty lurking below the surface, but it was hard to deny his optimistic streak from pointing out that almost two hundred thousand mutants were on Krakoa now, and they were doing swimmingly. He had a triangulation of Jean, Moira and Erik to keep him honest and he'd proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that even he could die and resurrection protocols would still stand. This was going to work. _They_ were going to work, Charles thought, looking at his companion, and isn't that a novel experience? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of the stuff that's canon in Chapter 2:
> 
> In the first meeting of the Quiet Council of Krakoa, they laid down three ground rules which were very interesting and philosophical and got into questions about property and belonging, but more importantly Nightcrawler thinks mutants need to bone more, and he said so directly to Mystique.
> 
> After, Erik and Charles had a slightly confrontational, mansplain-y meeting with Moira, so I just filled in the gap where they were walking over.
> 
> Whew, the death (see X-Force 2019, mainly). Charles actually wanted to die to test his protocols, but boy that did not stop everybody from freaking the hell out. Magneto did trash his place, I think, or it looked very trashed when he talked to Kwannon in Fallen Angels, and used the excuse of grieving. Charles' last death (God, ain't comics a bitch) lasted a lot longer, a couple years. He was killed by Scott, who had gone full Dark Phoenix, In Avengers Vs X-Men.
> 
> Erik's overdramatic ass really did make a sword out of Charles' wrecked Cerebro helmet, and Charles actually has it on his wall over the bedpost because he, too, is overdramatic. He was brought back in a body which closer matched Magneto's age. Resurrection works by combining the powers of five mutants to create a body, and then Charles (or in this case Jean) uses Cerebro to download their consciousnesses from a massive data storage cradle that has several backups. Charles scans every mutant once a week to get an up-to-date version and has to spend 3 days once a year getting a fresh copy.
> 
> Captain America was a Nazi, and Erik had to protect the Young X-Men from him in X-Men Blue. He wanted to send them back to their time, where Charles could look after them. He also, and this is fantastic, keeps Red Skull's skull in a box in the basement of his evil lair slash home for wayward time-displaced mutants. Blue also revealed that Erik's mental state was in a very bad way.
> 
> Relatedly, Red Skull did genuinely say that Charles never loved Magneto. Relatedly relatedly, Magneto beat him to death with his bare hands and also a giant rock. People were trying to get him to stop, because Red Skull was using a weaponized piece of Charles' brain, and they wanted to preserve it, but Magneto was a little preoccupied reverse-curb-stomping a Nazi who had violated Charles' grave. This is all in the AXIS event, thought the bit about Charles is from the Uncanny Avengers AXIS volume. Magneto wears all black after Charles died in AvX, and shaved his head too, because Magneto equates being a good guy with being bald.
> 
> It did cause another Onslaught, or as I like to say: half-Magneto half-bitchy-Charles monster baby.
> 
> David Haller, Charles' biological son who he has been a shitty father to, is listed as unknown in the Krakoan database, and personally I've got no idea where the hell he is.
> 
> Charles Xavier, Magneto, and Apocalypse dress up and absolutely destroy a weird, pseudo-secretive meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and it's the greatest thing I've ever seen in my life. Erik did most of the talking, and in the comic it's acknowledged that he quoted Huxley but it's my personal theory that he also referenced Shakespeare. It's pretty damn close. The Merchant of Venice is always difficult to talk about, and I'm not prepared to voice anything definitive about it. Read X-Men #4 and decide.
> 
> Reed Richards is a prat. This is canon. In terms of timeline, I wasn't sure where to place Davos compared to the ongoing and absolutely excellent X-Men/Fantastic Four series, so I decided it was before. Also the speculation about Franklin's parentage is based on some canon, especially with regards to Namor.
> 
> The throwaway line about Charles getting Sue Storm to give Jean a bit of mentoring is also canon, in some issue of First Class, I can't remember which.


	3. Limited rest for the wicked

Charles was bone-weary. They still had so much work to do, and there were still some pressing questions to be answered. His vision was a little blurry, and he was long past the early stages of a wicked headache. Beast had been working, too, and the fact that none of it seemed like it was going to be enough wore on him. Perhaps it hadn't been wise to reincarnate into his usual body, perhaps he should have kept the youthfulness. It certainly sounded pleasant now.  
The Quiet Council was struggling with telepaths. They were essentially the first, best defense the island had. Black Tom, and regular EMPs, and the fact that everyone had superpowers picked up some of their slack, but a not insignificant portion of his talents were directed towards scanning Krakoa for threats at any given time. Erik had brought it up at the last meeting. The truth is they're simply overextended. Yellowjacket's little attempt at espionage proved that.  
And Charles was the most overextended of all. Something was going to have to give, and they were at such a crucial juncture for the future of all life, and why the hell couldn't he do a simple goddamned thing like resurrecting Kate Pryde?  
He set Cerebro down at his kitchen table and stumbled over to the seat, still in his full black costume.

"You've been at this a week now," Erik said.

Charles jumped up. Magneto was lounging on his couch, playing absently with liquid metal floating above his chest.  
"Good lord, Erik," Charles said, catching his breath. "I thought..."

The concern on his friend's face was eminent. His shock-white eyebrows were furrowed deep and he was searching Charles' face for something. Charles for his part was too tired to hide anything, least of all how tired he was.  
"Charles, you need to sleep. I shouldn't be able to sneak up on you."

The telepath had recovered from the surprise. In fact, as he felt the spike of adrenalin recede he was almost sorry to see it go. "I'm sure I've just gotten too used to having you nearby," he said.

Erik took that response with a shake of the head. "That's probably part of it. The other part is that you're so tired you were going to sleep on this chair for the three hours off you've given yourself, which is presumably the same thing you did yesterday, and the day before."

Charles groaned, rubbed his face over with this hands. "I'm certain that the solution is going to present itself," he said, "if we just keep _trying_."

"I've spoken to Beast, and to Hope. None of you know what's wrong. It's madness to torture yourselves like this."  
"I know," Charles said. "One day soon we're going to have to give up. But I'm not there yet. There is an explanation, Erik, we just have to find it. Kitty Pryde was unable to go through the gates, unable to phase through the island, and now we find out that we are unable to resurrect her."  
He busied himself by looking at the papers sprawled over the coffee table, hypothesizing different reasons why resurrection might not be working. They were all circuitous, or ridiculous, or impossible. And none of them helped him figure out what to do. He pulled up one stack, just to the edge of the table, and breezed through the notes.

Erik sighed, and Charles realized he was being deeply inconsiderate.  
"I'm sorry. You're tired too. You've been picking up for everyone around here."  
"Perhaps, but I've also been _sleeping_ , or what passes for it in our lives. I'm not letting you leave here without six hours' rest, minimum. Your dream will not fall apart because you're too stubborn to accept that you've lost a battle, I won't allow it."  
"She's not a _battle_ , Erik, she's a young woman who I helped raise, and her family misses her. I miss her."  
"You're petrified."  
"Of course I am!" Charles cried. He made a little, desperate motion with his hand and the papers he'd been searching scattered onto the floor. "How could I not be? And you are too, I can feel it."

Erik guided Charles to sit down with him, properly, throwing a protective arm over his exhausted companion.  
"The idea of having immortality snatched from our fingers just when it was looking to be certain is frightening, yes. But I like to think I have a rather good approach to moments like these."  
"Which is?"  
"I panic and blow up a building."  
Charles laughed softly. "This really is the blind leading the blind, isn't it?"  
"Emotionally speaking, you'd be better off talking to Wolverine."

Even as he said it, Erik thumbed slow circles over Charles' bicep, and his arm was a solid, comforting presence. Charles laid his head on Erik's shoulder, and winced at the deep grooves the Cerebro helmet was starting to dig into his skin. Erik kissed his temple and pulled him in. It was remarkable, really, how much better things were knowing that Magneto was around. When Charles failed to notice Yellowjacket, Erik was there. When Charles needed someone to handle Sinister, Erik stepped up. When he needed to challenge Moira, Erik was with him, finishing his sentences. When Apocalypse came to Krakoa, Charles trusted Erik to make him fall into line. Charles was perfectly calm, facing down his own death, because he knew Erik would handle things in the interim.

His children, obviously, he trusted so far that he had often in the past doubted that he was even needed. But this was different. The difference, he suspected, laid in the fact that Charles could be weak around Magneto, and vice versa. He could be weak, and he could submit to the worst in himself, and Erik would talk to him about it and they'd fight, probably, but they'd never let the other go. Even when they were in one of their decades-long, bitter... disagreements, Charles could always be entirely honest with Erik. Being able to rely on him now, after all of that, felt so natural it sometimes hurt. Perhaps it was also that none of this was easy for Erik, and Charles knew why, and he was a little in awe of the effort Erik was making.

He'd overheard Erik explain resurrection to Polaris. Erik rarely struggled with words, but Charles caught the pause, the reverence with which Erik said it made them whole. This was _hard_ for him; in a way Charles probably couldn't even begin to quantify; and yet, here he was, holding Charles as if he were perfectly fine. Cracking jokes.  
"You know, I can tell when you're dwelling on nice thoughts about me. I've been able to tell for the last decade and a half. Emma was right, when we recruited her, do you remember? She said you're growing less subtle." Erik murmured, chin rested on his head.

Charles exhaled a laugh again, and focused harder. Plus, Charles thought, loud and clear, he's good with kids. That won him a smile.

He was falling asleep. There was something playing at the back of his mind, something he was supposed to be saying, and now that disquieting effect where he felt the smallness of his own brain without Cerebro was pulling him back awake. Finally, he found it.

"We should also talk about Mystique," Charles said wearily.  
Erik sighed. "Ridiculous woman."  
"She wants her wife back, Erik. She's going to move Heaven and Earth, and, yes, Krakoa. I know damn well I'd do the same."  
Erik's grip tightened, tellingly. "You already have," he said. "Did you mean it, when you told her you were getting numbed to it? The hatred, the fear. I worry with that helmet on, you're exacerbating it."  
"I'm fine," Charles said. "I'll manage. I have you around to balance out the bad."

It was what they'd discussed, now rather a while ago, at the UN Assembly. Charles Xavier was now the most hated and feared man on earth, along with possibly being the most influential. All eyes were on him, and much more importantly all _thought_ was on him. He could feel their miasma of everything from mild concern to sheer hatred piled onto his shoulders like a physical weight, whenever he put on Cerebro. It would be impossible for any stretch of time, for anyone other than Charles. He was quite sure of it. Even Jean, with her mind both sharper and more vast than Charles could imagine, didn't enjoy the sensation of too many humans thinking about her. But, like he'd said then, it was a lot easier to bear with Erik around.

"Charles, fine coming from you means next to nothing. You've said you were fine _while_ being killed."  
"I'm... adjusting."  
"That's what worries me. I understand that this is a difficult position for you, in a way that it wouldn't be for me. Godhood is never what you wanted. I don't want you to feel you need to sacrifice your... for extreme want of a better word, _humanity_."

"I don't either. I'm not blind to the fact that this is bigger than me and what I want, but I'm also well aware that this all hinges on us keeping some semblance of our moral compasses. That's why I needed you. To keep me honest, to measure myself against."  
Erik kissed him, almost reflexively. His warmth was soothing, and Charles was having difficulty resisting the familiar pull both of sleep and their profound telepathic connection.

"Mystique is going to be a problem," Charles warned, jerking himself out of the lull.  
"Everything's already a problem," Erik said. "We'll handle it. I'll follow it up personally."

Charles nodded. There were, it had to be admitted, several current problems running. There was the great, all-encompassing enemy: time. Charles Xavier understood what was at stake. There were more pressing short-term matters, such as the the Orchis-Nimrod station in space, the island's various security breaches, and the failure to resurrect Kitty Pride. Then there were the ones put on the backburner that Charles needed to know were being handled but was currently able to expend only limited energy on, such as Namor, the Fantastic Four, whatever Apocalypse was surely planning, infighting in the Hellfire Company and Mystique.

He knew the ones that he wasn't focusing on were just as dangerous as the ones he was; that was the problem with a plan like Krakoa. Everything about a new nation is fragile and precarious. Everything collapsed if certain foundations were removed. Charles was doing his best; five backups for the resurrection data, plans upon plans to help ensure that the Five had what they needed, a chain of command that stretched as long as his arm. Contingencies on contingencies on contingencies.

Charles thought of Genosha.  
"Don't," Erik said. "Come to bed. Sleep for six hours and then you can spend all of tomorrow worrying about every single blade of grass on this island."  
Finally, Charles assented. In the dark, half-awake and with one foot in the grave, Charles spoke for the last time that night.  
"It was a lie, of course," Charles said.  
"What was?"  
"Red Skull. I've always loved you."  
Erik politely didn't point out that they'd had that conversation weeks ago. "I know. Sleep, Charles."

Whether it was because he knew Erik was right, or because he was too tired to wake himself at the three hour mark, he slept the rest of the night. Erik woke earlier, and turned away anyone trying to get Charles' attention until he'd had a full eight hours.

When he awoke, it was to the smell of tea brewing. Charles got up, and went through his oddly mundane routine, and went out into the kitchen. Erik was reading at the table, scowling away over the brim of his teacup.  
"Erik, dear, I believe we agreed on six," he complained, pouring himself a cup.

Erik only grunted, clearly absorbed in what he was studying. "Have you seen this? Kurt sent it my way. He's taken on the unenviable task of collecting resurrection wills."  
Charles' interest was piqued. They still hadn't set many ground rules around resurrection, in part because they wanted to see what outrageous things people might ask, so that they could plan for the future. Charles and Erik's resurrection protocols were both very simple. Charles stipulated that he wanted to walk, until they finished construction on the island, and wanted to be a certain dignified age whenever possible (although the ache in his joints was begging him to rethink that one), and didn't much care about any of the rest of the specifics. He'd come back missing a few scars, for example, and perhaps a little healthier even than he remembered himself being. Erik's was even shorter. He had only one demand, really.

"Whose is it?" Charles asked, nodding towards the three or, oh dear, _four_ , page long resurrection will.  
"I don't think that matters so much as the contents," Erik said. His tone was a little amused, primarily baffled. "They seem to be asking, in rather, shall we say, _graphic_ detail, to be resurrected in _my_ body."  
"Good lord," Charles said. "Let me see that."  
He snatched the will over, and skimmed it. Indeed, the contents were a detailed list of instructions regarding resurrection into a perhaps slightly... idealized version of Magneto's body, replete with his powers. They even felt it necessary to insist that the powers were at their full potential as an Omega-level mutant. Oh, Charles' morning was shaping up to be so much better than he'd expected.

"Charles, please, I worry you're getting the wrong thing out of this."  
"You're not six foot eight," Charles mused, still flipping through the pages. He swatted Erik's interceding hand away, and turned his body so that he could keep reading as Erik struggled to reclaim the pages.  
"I loom," Erik said defensively.  
"You're two inches taller than me! Are you adding height to your boots?"  
Erik huffed. "That's rather more Emma's look than mine. Is that really what you're concerned with right now?"  
"Well, there are some other significant discrepancies with your anatomy that bear mentioning," Charles demurred, thumbing through the pages.  
"Oh?" Erik grinned. "I'm sure you've no need to check, old friend."

Charles laughed. "It's all a moot point, of course. Someone's going to have to break it to this poor soul that resurrecting in a body that isn't yours is likely to be painfully fatal."  
"That sounds like Nightcrawler's problem," Erik said, resolute.  
"We should really have some kind of discussion on bodily autonomy. If we have a right to our own body, surely we have a right to deny that it is duplicated, or hell, even to assent. Even if, for now, that decision is theoretical. I wish there were a way we could talk about it in less... economic terms. We should add it to the frankly concerning pile of things for the next Council meeting."  
Erik sighed. "I think we had better."  
"I'd probably also best be going."  
"Finally, something I can disagree with."

Erik used those two inches of height, boxing Charles in at the counter and finally taking away the offending papers. He was reading Charles' face, and Charles knew there were still grooves under his eyes.  
"You know," he said casually, "Your son is taking a family vacation. I know because he's bringing his brother and so he extended an invitation to Lorna."  
Charles looked at him as if he'd lost his goddamned mind.  
"No, I'm not suggesting _we_ tag along to what is undoubtedly going to be the single strangest family holiday in mutant history. But we could take a day or two. When they get back."  
"Erik, you know just as well as I do there's too much work to be done right now."  
Magneto, the world famous supervillain, sighed dramatically. He did not, however, make any move to back out of Charles' space.

"It is a tad strange, though," Charles conceded, sipping his tea.  
Honestly, Charles was happy. Scott seemed to be himself, and whole in a way Charles had never seen before, and if that meant a slightly confusing constellation of relationships then Charles was only glad they had Krakoa. The work felt worth it, to see Scott smile.  
"Utterly bizarre. They're bringing Logan."  
"Can we please not talk about the, ah, progressive relationships of my children this early in the morning?" 

"Fine," Erik said, pulling even closer. "And I suppose since we can't take a honeymoon, I could think of a few quicker alternatives."  
"The towering intellect behind the radical mutant ideology," Charles said, lightly mocking. "You, my friend, have a one track mind."  
Erik was already kissing his neck. "Erik!"  
"Go ahead and try to tell me you're late for a meeting," Erik dared. He pulled up, and Charles was perched on the counter. Above him now, Charles looped his arms over stupidly broad shoulders. Erik was grinning, and then there was a knocking at the door.  
The look on Erik's face was sheer murder.  
"If it's one of yours," Erik warned.

It was Henry McCoy and Jean, and X-Force had work to do. When they'd assembled X-Force, Mystique had turned her nose at the Quiet Council meeting. A Mutant CIA, she'd called it, derisively. Charles and Erik exchanged a telepathic joke, pushed back on that interpretation, and unfortunately the unofficial nickname seemed to stick.  
Magneto went with Beast to assess the situation and Jean hung back, leaning against his kitchen counter, looking thoughtfully out the window and then back to him. Her knowing gaze was almost too much for Charles, and even with her he felt the overwhelming urge to project a strong front. The kind of deception he hated himself for.  
"I can stay if you need me to," she said.  
Charles shook his head. "No. It's much more important to me that you get to spend time with your family."  
Jean nodded. They looked out onto the island.  
"He's not over your death, Charles. He might never be."  
"Which one?" Charles asked. Jean gave him an annoyed glance that reminded Charles that she'd spent a lot of time with Erik, too. "I know. It's one of... several issues I've put to one side for now."

Several, countless. Black Tom was referring to himself in the plural, now, which never meant anything good; and he was fairly certain Quentin Quire was in the process of convincing Krakoa to add hallucinogenic elements to the coffee they were growing. Erik's references to that Huxley book might have been _too_ prescient.  
Jean tilted her head. "You should've seen him, after. He really would have burned it all down if I didn't bring you back. When I made it sound like I wasn't sure I could, he looked like a wild animal for a second. It's... well, I don't want to say _sweet_."  
An image from Jean's memory darted between them. Erik was hovering over a body, Shakespearean, lamenting that he couldn't fix it. Then he was in the air, with Jean, holding a sword. His eyes were wild, his voice disturbingly level. He told Jean that a terrible clock was ticking, and Charles shuddered now. A terrible clock, indeed. A sword hanging over his bedpost, and a sword of Damocles hanging over the fate of all sentient life.

"We're handling it," Charles said again, firmly. He brushed away thoughts of the yawning infinite.  
Jean assessed him again, but came back satisfied.  
"I'm proud of you two. It feels like the dust's settled, and everything's ended up where it was supposed to be. I don't want to dismiss the fact that this is the happiest I've ever seen either of you."  
It went without saying how tremendously proud Charles was of both Jean and Scott. He appreciated the sentiment enormously, though.  
"What are you going to do about Kitty?" Jean asked, hesitantly.  
"I've given it some thought," Charles said. Erik had, devastatingly, been quite right about the sleep. "We're going to try again today, of course, but I'm worried about demoralizing the Five. I think soon we should be focusing on how it is exactly that she died, considering Storm, Iceman and the White Queen have all been guarding her fiercely."

"Shaw profited," Jean ventured. "He's essentially got a second seat on the Council, and it's shifted the balance of power considerably."  
Charles tended to agree. The whole point of Emma's table on the Council was that she could keep them in line, and they could be trusted to more or less be responsible without being another table of Charles' allies. If Emma fell, the Council would slip out of balance.  
"Keep an eye on him, then. Or the son. Actually, have Sage do it. I want this to be above-board, for when he inevitably comes whining about trust and persecution, as if he knows the meaning of either. Oh, and before I forget, speaking of vacations, I want you to look into a few ideas we've had to help give Cypher a break."  
Charles transferred the information over, and Jean hummed. Her little halo of psychic energy flared. "Using the royal 'we' I see, Charles."  
He shrugged. "So I've been worrying about him. Sue me."  
"Making sure that Douglas can take a long weekend can't possibly be the prerogative of the most important head of state on Earth."  
"Now you're starting to sound like him," Charles warned, but couldn't help a charmed smile.

Jean hugged him and left. He felt more or less rejuvenated, and there was work to do in paradise. He donned Cerebro, and the first thoughts he picked up on were Erik's.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of the canon stuff in Chapter 3:
> 
> Yellowjacket snuck onto Krakoa by hiding inside Pyro's head, and Erik helped resolve the situation, promising to bring up how telepaths are used in the island's security to the Council.
> 
> Kate Pryde can't be resurrected so far, and we don't know why. Charles and the Five have been running themselves ragged trying to figure it out.
> 
> Magneto really did say that resurrection made mutants, and especially him, whole to Polaris when Charles performed the first resurrection.
> 
> Mystique is gay! Her wife is Destiny! Charles and Erik have promised to bring Destiny back, if Mystique does what they need her to do, but they're lying. Moira has set a ground rule that there can't be any people with precognition on Krakoa, because they can see the future and that might screw up their Big Plans. Oh yeah, the entire new era of X-Men relies on the fact that Moira has always been a mutant whose gift is that when she dies she's reborn back into her original life. She's led nine so far, and she's learned that some big confusing Jonathan Hickman classic cataclysm happens every single time, a zillion years in the future. Therefore, the real enemy of mutantdom isn't humans, it's the inevitability that given enough time humans will become posthuman and then they'll bring on the end of everything. Sounds like something that is Not Yet My Problem.
> 
> Anyways, Mystique is pretty rightfully mad at them. She said she hated Charles, and Charles could barely muster up enough energy to respond.
> 
> Every single problem I list off in this chapter is a real ongoing thing, with the exception of Quentin Quire trying to get Krakoa to put LSD in the coffee. But, Quentin and Krakoa are actually really good friends, so, maybe.
> 
> The will thing is real, too. Well, not in detail, but Kurt and Cyclops mention that someone put in their will that they wanted to be resurrected with Magneto's body and it was funny as hell (X-Men #7). Magneto is 6' 2", and Charles is an even 6' out of the wheelchair.
> 
> Logan, Jean, and Scott are in some kind of relationship together. They're living together, and their rooms connect, and they're going on vacation together, and Scott made a joke about a speedo, and Jonathan Hickman is doing this to mess with us. It's fantastic. Emma's also involved with Scott still, and maybe, Jean?
> 
> X-Force is Krakoa's mutant CIA. Charles says the right hand turns a page, and the left closes a fist. It's all deeply badass. See X-Force (2019).
> 
> Shaw conspired to kill Kitty Pryde to give her seat on the Council to his son, and why the hell is he on the Council in the first place. He offers literally nothing constructive and also I hate him.


	4. Work-life balance; or mental health Zugzwang

Charles was shaking, just enough for Erik to pick up on. The morning's events were difficult to watch, and there was the added strain of a resurrection, which Charles was still nervous about, what with the Kate problem hanging over them. Erik, personally, was faring much better. Each successful resurrection soothed a wound on his soul he still wasn't fully prepared to acknowledge. They walked back from the square in front of the Arbor Magna where Aero had been brought back to thunderous cheering.  
"They say it's more difficult on mutants that can fly," Magneto offered. "Being depowered." He himself really hovered more than anything else. Aero's gift was a joy, a plane of movement, something that affected everything. Losing flight caused some mutants to really panic; as Warren Worthington might have proven best. Still, once he'd said it, Erik realized how he must sound, making excuses. Charles Xavier was shaken up because of the choice Aero had made, and because he couldn't shake the nauseating idea that he was party to something violent, and perhaps because it made some subliminal part of himself wonder what choices he might make in her place, and no amount of hollow reassurances from Magneto would change the fact that there would be others after Aero. Erik was particularly bad at stopping himself from putting his foot straight into his mouth when it came to situations like this; where things weren't quite as black and white as he liked to make them.  
Charles sensed where his thoughts were going and put a hand to his shoulder. "It's quite all right, Erik. What's done is done, and young Miss Guthrie seems satisfied with her choice."

They passed through the lagoon, and Bar Sinister's outpost here on Krakoa. The slightly base 'Sinister Secret' boards were up, and, fine, perhaps Charles had a point when he called him a gossip, but Charles was just as bad. There was a hefty, anonymous bet next to Sinister Secret #9 that Erik was almost completely sure was Charles', especially since the so-called secret looked to be about _them_. Of course, by now it was growing less secret by the day. He remembered when they first approached Sinister, over a decade ago, about this venture. Sinister had said something about Charles' chair, and Erik had politely but firmly threatened to kill him. Oh, but that was another Sinister. This was the one who'd liked his cape. Or was that right?  
"No," Charles said. "It was a different one. God, I feel old."  
"Which Sinister was it that trapped us in the Savage Lands?"  
"The gay one," Charles said.  
"They're _all_ the gay one." Erik frowned.

Charles gave him a funny glance. Within, he saw Lorna laughing pointedly with Alex Summers. They seemed to be getting along well, even with her insistence that nothing was going on. Erik knew better than to pry, but they dawdled for a moment. It was nice to see Lorna enjoy herself. Her powers were growing, and she seemed to be taking to Krakoan life particularly well.  
"Theoretically speaking, if my daughter marries your son's brother, what does that make us?" Erik asked as they left.  
"Confused," Charles replied easily. "You and Scott have a father-son relationship too," he pointed out. "What does that make your daughter and Alex?"  
  
It's true, Scott and Magneto had bonded considerably over the last few years. It was a fairly simple association. They both loved Charles, and they both killed him.  
"Good _Lord_ Erik," Charles said emphatically.  
"No, you're right, that was needlessly morbid."  
"Besides," Charles replied. "I've done far worse things to you. Weren't you the one who asked that we leave it in the past?"  
"Well. Not everything," Erik replied. He thought clearly (and with the sort of focus Charles always said was rather unique among non-telepaths) about that time in the Savage Lands. Predictably, Charles reddened under the helmet.  
"Just thinking about those days makes my knees ache," Charles said.  
Erik hummed. "I'm too old for dungeons." They were too old back then, too, but who's counting?

Traversing Krakoa often felt like a fable. Little scenes of mutant life, presented vicariously. Right now, it felt a bit poignant. This is what Aero wanted to belong to. Children ran about at Erik's feet, utterly unafraid, and Charles was in his head using Erik's surety like a crutch. They'd just watched a young woman fight to the death to be reborn, so that she could have her gifts again. It was one thing to support the _idea_ of it, and quite another to watch it happen from the sidelines. Erik had noticed that several times during the crucible Charles' hand went to his head, about to intervene on sheer instinct. But this was what Aero had chosen for herself, and Charles had raised her up, and each time it happened they were reaffirmed as Gods.

Soon, they'd come up on the House of X, nestled neatly in its little grove. On the coffee table was the mortally terrifying stack of reports Charles needed to go through before the meeting tomorrow. On the kitchen table was the copy of Time Magazine Erik had procured, with Charles on the cover.

"Emma just grabbed my attention. She's got some interesting ideas about how to tackle this Homines Verendi situation." Charles closed the door behind them.  
"You were right," Erik sighed. "The supremacists certainly do seem to be getting younger all the time."

As far as Erik had observed, there was a spectrum among telepaths. Emma was at a far end of the spectrum, and actively avoided physically speaking whenever possible. She thought Charles was quaint for how often he talked like a human, especially to other telepaths. When Erik and Charles were in private, they tended to speak mainly aloud. It was probably because they'd spent so many nights dancing around the fact that they were both mutants, when they first met each other in Israel. Habits are hard to break, he thought, as Charles brewed a pot of tea. Erik took both of their helmets and put them aside. He sat at the kitchen table, and sheepishly realized that he'd done it in order to be physically closest to Charles. That impulse would get him into trouble, one of these times.

"I did think it was interesting. There was absolutely no need for ▪︎-|A|-▪︎ to speak to her like that, but I've been mulling over what she said to him, in the beginning."  
Erik could guess which part. "To fight and die for my people, like a mutant."  
"It's true, isn't it? It's always been true."  
"A people of supplicants, but to each other. I could think of worse truths."

Charles poured two cups, handing one to Erik. He sat down in a fluid gesture, taking the closest seat to Erik at the kitchen table. He was lost in thought.  
"It's what you said to me, that night on the cliffs."  
"Yes. It's not just the infinite that gives us power. It's the foundation that makes us willing to lay down those infinite lives. We're a nation of martyrs, as well as a nation of Gods."  
Charles' lips pursed. Erik knew how he sounded, sometimes. The telepath's powers danced lightly over the surface of his mind.  
"Jean tells me... that is..."  
"Let me guess, Charles," Erik said, mimicking Charles' little fingers-to-the-temple gesture. "You're worried."  
Charles' tight expression relaxed a little.  
"I'm trying to tie everything up before I have to do everyone's backups." Ah, yes. Cerebro, once a year, needed a complete reupload. Raw data of all of the consciousnesses of every mutant on the planet. Charles would be out of commission for three days processing it all, and Erik would guard him fiercely.

Erik knew what Charles was getting at. Their little talks with Moira were bringing it out, too: the feeling that they were both simply tools in a larger war; that their collective trauma was tailor-made to suit a purpose. Sometimes Erik felt like a cannon, loaded with all the bitterest years of his life, ready and willing to be pointed at their enemies. At his best, he was a God among Gods. Other times, he was a trapped child, three quarters of a century away and yet it felt like it was happening now. The walls were very thin between the decades. He thought of Charles, not ten feet away from him in the sand, Scott's consumed form standing over him. Erik disliked vulgarities, but it was hard not to add the word 'fucking' before the words 'Captain America'.

"I don't really know if there's much to be said," Erik tried.  
"Perhaps there isn't. I just need you to know that this is going to be all right. I am going to be all right, and so are you. I've never felt so sure of anything in my life. I'm not asking you to forget about any of it, just... I'm not going anywhere."  
Erik rolled the idea around, tried it on. "I find myself checking, you know. Compulsively."

Of course, Charles knew. The mutant reached his black-clad arm over and grasped Erik's shoulder in a surprisingly platonic gesture. He was reminded of those nights that invariably ended in a barfight, before they had managed to out each other. Charles was trying to ground him in a good memory, and damned if it wasn't working.  
"Charles, don't play the therapist," Erik said, lightly. Charles' touch wandered down to his forearm absently. "It never suited you."  
"I think I'd make an excellent therapist, for the average person," Charles said. "You're simply the Rolls Royce of trauma."  
Erik laughed. "Zugzwang. Any move you make does damage."  
"Magneto: the bane of human supremacists and mental health professionals everywhere."  
"I'm their white whale," he said, mock-proud. They both laughed, and let it die down amiably.

Erik considered Charles. He looked tired, still, yes, but as always he carried it with grace. Unlike Erik, he almost never slouched and right now his slender fingers curled around Erik's arm. He was tall and lean and his eyes betrayed an almost devastating sharpness. Erik had known very early into their association that he'd never really want to spend time with anyone the way he did with Charles. There was no one on this earth he considered an equal in the way he did with Charles. He was aware that he was being overprotective, since the death. He knew what it meant, and he knew it wasn't good, but his sense of self for better or for worse was inexorably tied to who he was when Charles Xavier was around.

Still, there were other advantages to sticking to Charles like a giant white shadow. After all, they were alone. Erik leaned over and pulled his friend in for a notably less platonic gesture. His hand wound its way around to the back of Charles' neck and they kissed in earnest. Perhaps he clung too closely to Charles, but Charles seemed to subsume everything. He dimly felt a hand bunching in the fabric over his chest, and Charles was pulling him impossibly closer. The table's corner dug into his abdomen, but it didn't seem to hold any meaning when he loomed over Charles, and now the telepath was kissing his jaw, and he was too damned old to want anything this badly. He'd been wanting this his whole life.

In the morning they faced the Council, together. Charles told Erik to keep an eye on Shaw, and he was more than happy to do so.  
Shaw reclined in his tall Council seat. He was dressed like a human, albeit a baroque one. The short black slacks with the white socks were a bit ugly, but nowhere near as ugly as the man wearing them. Erik knew his derisive scowl deepened when it fell over Shaw's pompous form, and he let the full force of it show. Shaw was unfortunately unaffected. He seemed to gloat by his very presence, or by the empty seat to one side of him that should belong to Kate Pryde. The man only ever spoke to intercede with his inane, backwards viewpoints, until the end of the meeting.

"I had one more item of business to discuss," Storm said. Her voice, especially when she was angry, seemed to crack through a room. "A Sinister little rumor that the Fenris twins are on the island. Krakoa is for all mutants, but I can't be the only person in the room who objects to their presence, especially unchecked."

She nodded rather pointedly to Erik, who appreciated the gesture. The back of Charles' hand went to his bicep, instinctively.  
"You aren't," Erik agreed.  
He took his helmet off, to make communicating with Charles easier.  
* _Those little monsters don't mean anything good,_ * Charles said.  
* _Another problem for the pile._ *

Erik's eyes scanned the room. Sinister had a gleeful, pointy-toothed smile at the fight he'd managed to instigate. Shaw's relaxed posture had stiffened.  
"Surely you would object, then, to Sinister's presence? Or Apocalypse's? Or Magneto's?" Shaw asked. His voice raked on that liminal part of Erik's brain that made him want to tear something down. "After all, they've done quite a lot to hurt some of you in the past. I was under the impression that Krakoa is a clean break."  
"All of Magneto's actions in the past have been purely motivated by the desire to protect the mutant race," Charles said coldly, venomous. "The same can't remotely be said of Fenris, or indeed yourself, Sebastian. Watch what you say in the presence of your betters."

Erik couldn't help the twitch upward in the corner of his lip. Charles was truly, singularly capable of making a man feel foolish.

"Besides," Jean said. "The past isn't the issue. The Fenris twins are famous, as far as I know _unrepentant_ white supremacists. I don't want Krakoa to be unsafe for its citizens."  
If Erik recalled correctly, Storm had interceded with their attempts to murder an African woman. They'd tried to assassinate Erik, in Paris.

"I have been given a mandate to run my side of Hellfire with complete control. I can choose to appoint whichever knights and bishops I desire," Shaw said, crossing his arms.  
"Perhaps we should revisit that mandate," Storm replied icily.  
"Oh, I _strongly_ second that," Emma said, leaning back in her chair.  
"I noticed that you only rushed to Magneto's defense, Charles," Shaw said. "Playing favorites, as usual?"  
* _He's trying to bait you,_ * Charles warned inside Erik's head.  
"I don't think the likes of ▪︎-|A|-▪︎ needs much defending from you," Erik said smoothly. "Perhaps you should focus on answering to Storm and myself. Why have you invited Nazis to our paradise?"

Indeed, Apocalypse was quiet on Charles' other side. His massive blue hands were comically clasped together over the table. His expression was one of deep, profound boredom. Ororo nodded to Erik, a regal incline of the head. Charles' children made such formidable allies.  
Shaw's self-righteous anger was building to a boil, that telltale red around the edges of his fucking ridiculous sideburns.  
* _He's trying to bait_ me _, now,_ * Charles thought to Erik. * _He's projecting the words 'shirt lifter' towards me as loudly as he possibly can._ *  
* _My God, the man's a fossil._ * Erik replied. * _Emma tells me he genuinely called something 'women's work' at one of the Hellfire meetings._ *  
Charles' mental sigh was completely unreflected on his physical body, which smiled politely under Cerebro.

The back-and-forth went on, and Charles ran circles around Shaw enough times to get the capitalist dandy to agree to bring the Fenris twins in front of the Council to make their case in a week. They'd make it public, too, that the twins were holed out in Shaw's keep. Until then, house arrest. If they were caught in breach of that arrest, they would be at Erik's mercy. Erik tried not to grin too toothily at that.  
* _If we play our cards right, this could lead to another exile,_ * Charles projected.  
* _If they play their cards wrong, I'm going to put them down like dogs. Call it fucking therapy._ *  
* _Who am I, to judge your coping mechanisms? If they stay under house arrest, bring up the father when they come before the Council. I'm willing to bet it's still a weak point._ *  
Oh, how Erik looked forward to that.

The Council let out for the day.  
"Be warned, Shaw," Charles said. "The Strucker twins will be on trial, but in a sense so will you. Thus far you've managed to use your position to line your pockets and precious little else."  
"Are you going to sic your dog on me as well?" Shaw asked, petulant.  
"For your sake, you had better hope not," Erik replied, falling in smoothly behind Charles. "Your clothes seem far too expensive for me to bloody."

Shaw began an objection, and Charles turned on his heels and walked out. Erik followed suit a moment later. The telepath put a hand on Erik's hip as they walked out, and Erik's thoughts were predictably impure. He was becoming something of a satire of himself, he thought, and took Charles' hand to kiss it.

* _Remind me why the House of X is so far from the Council building, when you designed this island,_ * Erik murmured in his head.  
* _Well, we could go to your place, only it's really not a house so much as a lair._ *  
* _You know what I'm about, Charles. Don't pretend you haven't liked some of the lairs._ *  
* _Perhaps I simply want a work-life balance,_ * Charles offered in answer to Erik's question, a deflection if Erik had ever heard one.  
* _Is that why you're screwing the first Councilmember to the left? For a good work-life balance?_ *  
* _Would you prefer I screwed Apocalypse?_ *  
* _Charles, you don't know the meaning of the phrase work-life balance._ *  
* _This is what I mean when I say you struggle with irony, darling._ *

Charles gave him an indulging smile beneath Cerebro, and they were out of earshot now. They switched to actual speech.  
"Sebastian Shaw is a disgrace to mutantdom," Erik said firmly. "That bigoted, spoiled, pretentious moron belongs in another century. In fact, if that's what happens when one is outside of the time period they might thrive in, Krakoa is in serious fucking trouble."  
Charles laughed. "I believe that man is rather a special case. Shaw could live another million years and I'm sure he'd still be an absolute twat."

They were back in their little shelter. The idea of the Strucker twins touching Krakoan soil turned Erik's stomach, but he had quite a consolation. He also had Charles walking ahead of him, which afforded its own advantages. Thank God for Krakoan fashion, Erik thought.  
"We've got an hour before I have to be in Sokovia and you in the jungle of South America," Charles said evenly, before Erik pinned him to the wall.  
"I meant we could eat something," Charles said between kisses.  
"Don't pull that with me, Charles, I'm not a mind reader but I know what _this_ is," he said, rolling his thigh between Charles' legs.

Both were late to their respective assignments, but Erik presumed Sokovia would not weep for the loss of ten minutes of Charles' Xavier's time. The jungle was a lot more bearable, on the whole, than he was expecting it to be, even if Quentin Quire wasn't. By the time he got back, Charles was with the Five, and Erik knew he'd come home frustrated. He procured some food from the island's many new establishments, and went to work deciphering Charles' notes on Kate Pryde.

When Charles came back, they ate together and discussed it. Scott and Jean stopped by early in the evening, with a gift of tea and a promise to provide vacation photos. Lorna visited and conspicuously left a wedding brochure and neither was able to sleep for long enough to feel rested but, after all, they say when you have children you never sleep again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stuff that's canon this chapter:
> 
> So this is the first time I've sort of veered off a bit, with the confrontation over the Struckers who are on the island but it's not clear how that's going to play out.  
> Lorna and Alex were a couple and now it's unclear. Alex and Charles are both lifelong members of the "Oh no the House of M are hot" club.  
> The Council is made up of four seasons plus Krakoa-through-Douglas. I love that Cypher, the mutant everyone loves to clown on, is literally integral to the future of the Marvel universe.


	5. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These are pieces I couldn't fit into the narrative: some prequel stuff and some quick explorations of the three most relevant of Moira's previous reincarnations in terms of Magneto and the Prof. It's uhh... all quite sad so can the next issue of X-Men/FF please come out already and make me laugh?
> 
> I also added a playlist nobody asked for :)

Prelude to House of X

Charles dreaded this moment. He dreamed about it. He and Moira traversed the island, and Charles felt a familiar pull at the metal of his wheelchair that told him they were close. Close, and now Moira's pushing was only perfunctory. Erik was leading them in. He supposed that was a good sign. Still, there was something tragic about the way Magneto's power was grasping at him, maybe in its impreciseness. Charles felt the metal in his watch tug lightly at his wrist, as if a child were trying to get his attention.

The island was dead, and Charles knew what it meant when the great Magneto felt alone. There Erik was, atop the hill, looking out over all of it, and Charles' heart broke again. He wouldn't cry, he owed Erik's pain that much. This wasn't about him.

Erik spoke and Charles couldn't help but note the hoarseness of his voice. Twenty seconds into their conversation, Charles knew it was foolish to have come here. He was still very much in love with Erik, he might always be. Moira's hand covered his shoulder, and she knows, she must know, Charles thought. Neither of us have ever been subtle. Erik is wearing red and purple, and a cape, for Christ's sake. He was hopelessly, damn near _fatally_ in love with Magneto, and right now Magneto was hurting so badly it was leaking from the helmet like a cup overflowing. This was the kind of situation that Charles made dangerous decisions in. Who Charles was, what he wanted, seemed such distant secondary concerns.

That night, Moira left, and Erik came to him. He didn't take off the helmet, and Charles couldn't find it in him to blame the man. They'd always been a bit too honest with each other, and Charles could read plenty as it stood. He wasn't blind, he knew that Moira left them because Charles would be what brought Magneto into the fold, especially in Erik's weakened state. Charles let a faint wave of self-loathing pass without dwelling. He was being used, in a sense, but then Erik knew that too. Charles' open arms were a trap, like they always had been, for both of them. This time, Charles promised himself. This time he'd see to it that Erik didn't get hurt.

"You promise me happiness I'm not convinced I can feel. A future I've lost the ability to see."  
"I can promise a chance to help others get there, then."  
"It's all I ever wanted," Erik said honestly. "Something in me recoils, still. I'm a broken man, Charles. I don't know if, when the time comes, I'll be able to help you."  
Erik sat, now, across from Charles. He was crying, at least in that tears were flowing. He didn't quake, it wasn't reflected in his voice. Charles wasn't sure if Erik was even aware. He seemed shell-shocked, which Charles supposed he was.

"I'll bring them back," Charles blurted, before he could stop himself. Erik's head snapped up to look at him. "I'll bring every single one of them back, and I don't know how to fix you but I swear, Erik, if that's what you want I'll try."  
The other mutant's eyes were still faraway, within his metal helmet, cast in shadow. Charles peered into them, searching for what he couldn't see with his telepathy. A gloved hand took Charles', and pulled it towards Erik's chest. Charles leaned forward, but could move no further.  
"I need you," Erik admitted.

Charles could be strong for Erik. He could be absolute, when Erik wasn't himself, or the version of himself that he wanted to be. Erik drew his chair closer and pulled Charles' hand under the helmet, where Charles wiped away tears. The movement, and the hand under the metal, and their connection all gave the telepath a route in. He didn't take it, but he projected the keen certainty that he felt in Erik. I need you as well, old friend, he thought. Otherwise I wouldn't be here.

A decade later, on another island, Charles Xavier is about to address the world. Erik looks him in the eyes and swears a fealty of sorts. It's not "I love you", that had always been true. It's a bigger, much more dangerous promise: I'll stay with you. A white-gloved hand comes to his shoulder, and he encapsulates it with his own. His smile is private, and his heart bursts for a moment before he must put on Cerebro.

\----------------------------------------------------------

Three Days in Purgatory:

Erik paced. He often does, when he's worried. Or, and let's be honest with ourselves, terrified. It wasn't supposed to happen this quickly. Charles Xavier asked him to come back, and he did, like he always would. The telepath asked him to guard his body, while he laid collecting the data of mutant lives. He'd have to do this every year, for three days, forever, if his plan worked. Erik would be here, for three days, each time. It wasn't even a question.

So, Erik paced, and Charles dreamt of souls, and Erik slowly gave up on the idea that somewhere along the way he'd lost the ability to have feelings for him. It was never a thunderstrike, it was the fact that each time Charles twitched in his sleep he noticed. It was the fact that Erik's whole consciousness felt focused on a point two meters to the side, at the center of Charles' chest. Erik circled it like one circles the drain, inevitable and faintly tragic.

He felt like he might be going insane, he wanted to touch Charles but that would be even madder, not to mention wildly non-consensual. They haven't talked about... this, yet, and this time it might kill him. There are only so many times a man can wonder if he's breaking something when he leans in. He didn't know where the boundaries were, between all the things they had been to each other. God, he grew melodramatic in his old age. Three days was not so long a time to be without Charles' presence, after a decade of separation. After a death on the beach, at the hands of a fundamental force of the universe, being threaded through Scott, like the sun being threaded through a needle. Like infinite suns being threaded through a needle, he supposed, and could he really expect the embodiment of the infinite to have given a thought to Charles Xavier, and what he meant to the decrepit old man in a cape lying next to him?

After the first day, he'd started talking to himself. About two hours later, he realized he was talking to Charles, which put a temporary stop to it. In the middle of the night it rained and Erik wondered idly if Charles knew, wherever he was. Sometimes Charles' mouth would move, sometimes he'd even speak, but the words were strange. Erik couldn't remember any of it. He watched the sun move, and then the moon, and waited.

Charles came back into the world slowly, weakly. He'd been essentially in stasis except for his brain, and now he weakly attempted to get up. Erik supposed three days' atrophy was nothing for Charles, but that didn't mean he'd be able to spring up and start tripping the light fantastic. Trembling hands tried to remove Cerebro, and Erik did it with his powers instead. The telepath disliked feeling helpless in a way Erik was eminently sympathetic to, and he held Charles. They didn't discuss it, for once, mercifully. Charles just shook, and stuttered, and Erik pulled him to curl up against his chest like vines on brick.  
"It's, ah, quite t-t-taxing," Charles managed, teeth chattering.  
"Nothing will ever be easy for men like us, Charles."

He kept his voice distant and grandiose and felt oversensitive tendrils of Charles' power flare out into his mind. Oh, God, that meant Charles was successful. God, Erik thought.

He waited until the shaking subsided. He brought Charles water, and food, and the telepath ate voraciously. The young face that had shown up at his doorstep, different but undeniably Charles, didn't look entirely out of place wolfing down massive portions of bread and butter. How strange Erik realized they must look now. How strange it must have been, when Charles came to him in a body, what, half his age? Yes, focus on that. Focus on the fact that he hasn't invited you to touch him, and he in all probability _shouldn't_.

He made tea, and saw a predatory glint in Charles' eye that almost made him cry in relief. Three days without a cup of tea seemed to be his limit.

"Are you still yourself?" Erik asked, and the second he asked it all his anxiety over the last three days slotted into place. Charles had just had thousands of lives in his head. In their entirety.  
Charles looked himself over, looked up at Erik.  
"I think so," he said. "There was too much, at first, but I figured it out rather quickly. The trick is to be empty, the telepathic equivalent of a USB cable. It was a bit like a possession," he said. "I floated in the dark above a river of data, it was in control. Cerebro."

Erik nodded, satisfied on that front. "And no trouble from the astral plane?"  
Charles made a half-half gesture. "None from outside sources, at any rate."  
Ah. Only the _usual_ trouble in the astral plane. "What kind of answer is that, Charles?" Erik asked, pained smile playing havoc with his features.  
Charles only held Erik close again, and Erik did his best not to kiss him. His level best.

\------------------------  
ALTERNATE UNIVERSES, or three of the nine lives of Moira

Fifth life: Radicalized Xavier

X was in the gardens when the bombing began. His mind reached out first to Magneto, and then to Moira in her coma, and wasn't that damning. Magneto pulled him up by the chair, floated them both high above the city to get a better vantage.  
"They're not sentient," X said, of the giant machines bombarding the dome protections of the mutant nation of Faraway. The monsters Moira had warned him about.  
"They're not made of metal," Magneto offered.  
They watched the vanguards of X's revolution fight and be slaughtered. They watched the machines pillage their bodies, and return to the fray stronger with the stolen gifts of mutation. It was their turn to fight and die, X knew, and he exchanged a final look with Magneto, who had somehow also always known this time would come, and loved X anyway.

"I suppose I'll find you the next time around," X said, cryptically.  
Magneto gave him a distracted look. Neither of them had much time for religion, why all this nonsense about reincarnation now? Not that it mattered, he decided, and kissed X firmly before man's weapons managed to breach the walls.

Eighth life: House of M

Charles had watched the Avengers and indeed many of his X-Men cut Erik down, powerless to do anything. The House of M had well and truly fallen, and despite the fact that Charles had really never approved, he could never keep himself away for long. A phone call here, a chess game there, and the biggest ideological schism of their lives was suddenly nothing more than the backdrop to their affair. This of course all came out after Erik died, and Charles happily went to prison as a conspirator. Others were not nearly so fortunate. The whipcord swing of the pendulum that Charles had spent his whole life in fear of, that prevented Charles from ever truly being able to join Magneto, had come. Only fools believed that the arc of history bent towards justice. The arc of history was a fucking boomerang, and many mutants were not so lucky as Charles Xavier and his cushy jail cell, where he could contemplate the depths of his cowardice in peace. They collared him immediately, of course, despite his age. He was grateful. Without his wider mental abilities, the memory of Erik that haunted him was a little more immaterial.

Ninth life: Age of Apocalypse

So the underground lair was a bit... creepy. Charles certainly would have said so, probably even before he saw the myriad photos of him Erik kept alive on digital screens. If this was what it took to keep Erik some transient semblance of sane, Charles would understand. If he couldn't save Charles, he'd save his children, as many as he could, and he'd let himself quietly lose it in the dark, alone. Frankly, he was surprised he'd made it this far. So what if he talked to the portrait, late at night? Their hideaway upstairs was full to the brim of people that missed Charles Xavier and Magneto had nothing to say to them. He was a poor substitute, and he was weak, and he missed Charles badly enough to slip up and talk to him in front of the kids. It felt like a small sin compared to the barren, sandy wasteland above, ruled by an eternal monster with a hideous blue face and an oddly familiar brown haired Scotswoman. What could be mad, in a world like that?

Playlist:

I've been wanting to add a playlist for a long time but I couldn't get these two parts to gel so here's two short micro-playlists; one for the party on Krakoa (plus Magneto and the Prof's badass moments) and one for the quiet off-panel moments.

Gods of Krakoa:

Alone by the Fireplace:

(but House of Cards, All I Need, and Nude off of this album all have uncomfortably relevant lyrics to the point where I'm concerned that's where I got some nugget of an idea from)


	6. High highs and low lows; or inebriation and madness on Krakoa and Genosha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I would like to thank Chip Zdarsky and his X-Men/FF for fixing my mental health, and thank Empyre: X-Men for immediately ruining it again. Surprise shoutout to Wolverine issue 3, which is where a lot of this chapter comes from, and yes this is still all canon-compliant so far, thank you Krakoa.

"What's on your mind, Charles?"  
The telepath smiled guiltily. "Am I playing that poorly?"  
As an answer, Erik took his knight, free of charge, and looked back up at him, white eyebrow raised.  
"I spent some time with Franklin. He's doing much better. Krakoa has been good for him. Worried about Kitty, of course, but he seems to have more confidence in me than I do."

Charles surveyed the board a little listlessly, hoping Erik might have made a mistake because his own strategy had flown out the window three moves ago. Just like everything in Krakoa, he supposed. They were making it, but lord was there little room to maneuver. Right now, he and Erik were catching a rare break. Charles was back from handling a UN thing, and on his way to handling a Cerebro thing, and Erik was back from handling an Emma Frost thing. They met at the House of M; the nice, rebuilt, palatial part; for a quick round of chess, and surprisingly that _wasn't_ a euphemism. Erik's slightly pretentious castle overlooked a little courtyard of jungle, with tall metal walls and graceful windows. The next room over was a complete mess of broken things, but neither of them really had time for personal projects, and Charles appreciated the gentle light filtered through the greenery in here.

"He doesn't know about his father, then," Magneto supplied.  
"No, it seems they haven't talked about it. Which means Reed Richards is either planning something or deeply embarrassed."  
"We caught him red-handed with a machine designed to strip mutants of their powers permanently. Alter their genes. It's eugenical, egomaniacal, overprotective bastardry to the highest degree. I don't think he's embarrassed, I think you castrated him. And bravo for it, Charles."

Charles tipped his head in a little mock-bow and drank from his teacup. Erik had barely touched his. They'd confronted Reed together, of course, and Charles knew exactly how much fun that had been for Magneto. It was the sort of thing Charles shied away from, generally. As a rule, he didn't like to be blatant about his powers, and if he was doing something morally gray, he tended to cover his tracks. But Krakoa needed a little more openness from him, perhaps, and Reed badly needed a lesson in humility. The fact that he'd even think to make something to hurt not only his son but an entire race, _just in case_ , was disgusting.

He'd taken away Reed's ability to ever create his blasted Code X again, but made sure Reed remembered forever who he was playing with. It had, Charles admitted, felt good. It had felt even better to be doing it with Magneto at his side. He moved a rook rather boldly, but they didn't have much time left to themselves; Charles had important business with Beast.

"Franklin simply assumed we were on a date in New York."  
"Weren't we?"  
Erik was grinning at that. He kept extremely dear the memory of Charles saying: "This is not a game to us. This is our right to survive." as he towered over Mister Fantastic, rearranging the contents of his head. Occasionally Charles heard him thinking about it not-so-idly as he blatantly stared at Charles over Council meetings.  
"Your idea of romance is a little startlingly tangential to your idea of warfare, Erik."  
"Oh, spare me, Sigmund Freud. I don't raise an eyebrow when you get excited by a little verbal sparring. Let me have my fun."  
Charles stuck his tongue out in retaliation and Magneto moved a piece.  
"Childish," Erik accused.  
"Sore loser," Charles replied, sipping his tea.  
"I'm winning, Charles. Actually, by quite a lot."

"Yes, and I'm letting you because you're such a sore loser."  
Erik laughed at that, and he did rather let himself in for it.  
"You're meeting Beast in twenty minutes. Concede, Charles."  
"Never," Charles said, moving his remaining knight.  
"Fine," Erik said. "Tell me what you're meeting about, then."

Charles sat up. "Well, I don't mean to alarm you, but I can't see Russia."  
Magneto gave him a deeply confused look, and moved a piece.  
"In Cerebro, I mean. It's... well, it's gone dark."  
"Do you mean to tell me that not a single mutant in Russia is thinking at all? What, has Bobby visited? Check, by the way."

Rolling his eyes, Charles sacrificed a bishop to keep the game going. "I'm being kept out. It's clearly intentional. I think the mutants remaining in Russia are caught up in something, voluntarily. Or, well. The Pale Girl is there, so perhaps not-so-voluntarily. There are human-killing drugs involved, synthesized from Krakoan plants."  
"I'm sure the UN are thrilled,"  
"They're rather predictably upset," Charles agreed. "The American Ambassador openly called me a drug lord."  
Magneto's face flashed a sort of dislike at the slight against Charles' character, and he moved his queen. "Check. I was approached by Kwannon after you died, about the killer drug situation and some kind of rogue intelligence. I thought it was running out of Brazil."  
"The war on drugs is as international as it always was, and just as quixotic. We're spread too thin to run around solving humans' problems right now. That's what Dr. Richards is for," Charles said, moving his king.  
"You're just delaying the inevitable now, Charles," Magneto said, putting him back in check.

"Well, I've told you my engagements, it's only fair you tell me what you're spending your evening on," Charles said, and moved a remaining piece to shield the king.  
"You're not going to believe me, but Wolverine wants to talk at the Green Lagoon."

Charles' eyebrows shot up at that, and then a smile broke out. "First Emma invites you to dinner, and now Logan invites you to drinks. You're quite popular, darling."  
"Is the great Charles Xavier jealous?" Magneto grinned, moving his queen again to threaten Charles' remaining knight. Charles laughed.  
"Watch your phrasing, Erik."  
Erik made a face. "I don't think I'm his type, if it makes you feel any better. I absolutely detest sunglasses indoors, for one, it's all very suspicious."  
"I thought we had a moratorium on discussing my children's preferences," the telepath chastised.  
"Stop stalling, Charles."

Charles looked at the board, and looked at his options. He played out the next two moves, the next three, and they all lead to checkmate. He was at a dead end. He reached over the board to kiss Erik, and knocked over his king as an afterthought.  
"I want a rematch tonight, if you can manage," he said, and somehow it _still_ wasn't a euphemism. Erik blinked, looked back at the board, and stood to kiss Charles properly. They were in each others' heads a little, and Charles noticed that Magneto was happy. It was one of those new things. Just, happy. Contented. Thinking about a million things, but mainly Charles, right now, and the way they fit together.  
"I've got time to burn, but you're late, I suppose," he said, hands circling Charles' hips.  
"Which is why you're going to let me go."  
"Any second, I'd imagine," Erik agreed, and kissed Charles again.

Four hours later, Remy LeBeau (aka Gambit), Rogue, Jamie Madrox (Multiple Man) and Fred Dukes (occasionally Blob) sat at the bar in the Green Lagoon, wondering how best to proceed.

At the far end of the bar sat Magneto, with his face on the table. He had been passed out, blind drunk, for a good hour or so. He was missing his helmet.

"You really won't say what went down?" Remy asked Blob.  
"I value my life," Blob said, shrugging his massive shoulders. "Resurrection seems like a hassle."  
"He's coming to," Jamie said nervously.

He was only half right. Magneto stirred, groaning, and pulled himself up from the table only to slide onto the floor.

"We'd better help him," Gambit said, moving to try to foist Magneto up.  
"Why?" Fred asked, cleaning glasses, looking at Gambit like he was crazy.  
"Do you want him in here when he wakes up for real? Chere, I could use a hand. The man's surprisingly heavy."  
Rogue rolled her eyes, setting her cup down. She helped him get to his feet, passing him back to Remy.  
"Easy there, Maggie," she drawled.  
"My helmet," Magneto said, slurring his words. "Where's my..."

The metal in the room stuttered a little. Remy looked at Fred pointedly. "Ok. You three had better get him home."  
"Take him to the Professor," Rogue said, shaking her head. "He'll handle it. I'm waiting up for Storm."  
"Uh, you don't think Xavier has better things to do than babysit a drunk Magneto?" Jamie asked, prodding one of Magneto's limp arms.  
"You're making a bold wager, my friend, no?"  
Jamie looked at him quizzically.  
"Betting that Magneto's not gonna remember this in the morning," Gambit said with a grin. 

Magneto groaned again, swaying, and Jamie leapt back with a squeak. Suddenly he seemed to snap into focus. "Where's my helmet?" he asked Gambit. The metal in the room shook again.  
"It's, well, it's..." Gambit looked around the room, hoping he'd kicked it under a table somewhere. Rogue shrugged, but Blob seemed to have an idea. He reached around to the other side of the bar and found one of the decorations: a purple and red helmet recreated from Magneto's bad guy days. He passed it to Gambit while Magneto's head was swiveling around the room.  
"It's right here, Erik. Ain't nothing to worry about, see?"

"Hm," Erik said, lifting the helmet with his powers. "Why is it red?"  
"You like red, Maggie," Rogue said gently. "Remember?"  
Magneto shook his head, falling sideways against a booth. Gambit helped him sit down again. "Wrong... wrong helmet. N... White one. Where's..."  
His head fell down against the bar with a thunk.  
Everyone breathed a sigh of very confused relief, and then Erik's head shot back up again.  
"That Canadian reprobate stole my fucking helmet," he said almost calmly.

All hell broke loose. Metal swirled everywhere, Blob ducked under the bar. One of Jamie's duplicates got brained by a flying pan.  
"Okay, Erik, it's time to calm down," Rogue said, pulling a glove off.  
"What would Charles think of you trashing his island, eh?" Gambit called, sidestepping a metal bar.  
The metal all stopped in midair, frozen like someone had paused time at the word Charles. Rogue put her glove back on, exchanging an amused look with Gambit. Magneto looked at her, then the Cajun.

"I forgot about the rematch," he told them, very seriously. When they didn't seem to understand, he got up. "Chess," he said, and Gambit took one of his arms and slung it around his shoulder. He motioned at Jamie to come get the other side, and they engaged in a back and forth of harsh whispering until Jamie did what Gambit asked.  
"Sounds important," Gambit agreed, placating, maneuvering the three of them to the door. He held it open and they stumbled out. "Let's get you over there, okay? And then you an' the Professor can sort this all out in the morning, no?"  
"I am going to liquefy his bones," Magneto announced. "And then I'm going to have Charles res--resurrect him... And then I'll do it again."  
"Fuck me, the House of X is all the way at the top of that hill," Jamie said miserably.  
"Where the hell is Kurt when you need 'im," Gambit whispered.  
"And again," Magneto said solemnly.

Charles opened his door just as they reached the front yard.  
"My," he said simply, at the state of all three of them. He had a just slightly amused smile, though it was hard to make out under Cerebro.  
"Delivery for you, Professor," Gambit said, grinning. "Where do I put him?"  
Charles moved out of the way, and they came in.  
"The couch should do. He's going to be furious soon. I recommend you make yourselves scarce. Do you know what happened? I'd find out from Erik's memories, but frankly I don't want to catch a secondhand headache."  
They let him fall indelicately onto the couch.  
"He don't have his helmet," Gambit offered. "Mentioned something about it bein' stolen. Logan, I think, though Gambit don't know why."  
At the word Logan, Magneto stirred. Charles made a cursory sweep of Gambit's memories, checking first if it was all right, and resolved to check Fred Dukes' as well, at earliest convenience. He quietly thanked Gambit, and reminded himself to have a particular conversation with Rogue.  
"Okay, Mr. Xavier, I think this is your problem now. I'm going to go, uh, anywhere else," Jamie offered, and he and Gambit left.

"Erik," Charles called, peering over at him. He took Cerebro off, just in case, putting it down at the table.  
Magneto made a noise that might have been "Charles".  
Charles filled a cup of water and brought it over. "You'd better drink, darling. I'm not sure Krakoa has a hangover-curing drug."  
Magneto regarded him, squinting. "Charles," he said. "Reed Richards is a bastard."  
"Yes, I know," Charles said. He resisted the urge to pet Erik's hair. Instead, he sat down on the coffee table as Magneto twisted to face him.  
"Your eyes," Magneto said, frowning. "They're like cobalt." He reached out a hand to cup Charles' face, swiping a thumb over his cheekbone.  
"Charmer," Charles said, kissing Erik's palm. "Go to sleep, Erik. You've got a hell of a morning ahead of you."

Indeed, in the morning, Charles brewed some tea and watched Erik stir. The tall, built mutant sprawled on his couch made a strangled sound, followed by a jumbled string of curses in several languages.  
"Hello, darling. Had fun with Logan last night?"  
Erik winced at the sound and took the tea Charles offered, downing it in one go. "I am going to fucking murder him," he warned.  
Charles laughed. "Is that because he's got your helmet, or because he drank you under the table?"  
"Either," Erik said. "Both. His bones are coated with adamantium. He _knows_ I'll kill him. _Painfully_."

Magneto rose, and almost buckled, gripping his head. "What was _in_ that drink?"  
"Darling, you had _ten_ drinks."  
"What was in all ten of them, then," Erik mumbled, planting one of his hands on the arm of the couch. "I assume this was revenge for tossing him out of the Paris gate. Shit, I can't feel my helmet anywhere on the island. Or Logan's fucking skeleton. Are my powers acting up?"  
"Hm," Charles said, shadow crossing his face. "Ah. This might actually be my fault."  
Erik's head came up, a little confused and more than a little furious.  
"Logan isn't on the island. He's taken a few mutants. He must have gone to face the Pale Girl, and taken your helmet for a bit of protection. I should have checked the second you were late, I might have caught him. This is really rather frustrating. I need to have a word with him about his modus operandi."

Erik's look was murderous, and in a new direction now that Wolverine had inconvenienced Charles. "When he gets back I want a Council meeting. Can you assemble them at short notice?"  
Charles had to concur. They had too much to worry about without Logan going rogue. "Mutants love a good meeting. I'll see what I can do."  
"You're wiping Gambit and the rest's memories," Erik said, pushing his luck.  
"I absolutely am not," Charles said mildly. "Apparently they stopped you mid-rampage by saying my name."  
Erik sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose. "There goes my supervillain credit," he said, witheringly, and Charles laughed again, which made him wince.  
"I thought you were very sweet," Charles offered. "You're lucky you have so many of your outfits here, Erik. Take your time, I've just pinged the rest of the Council. We'll meet in an hour and a half."

After Erik had showered, changed, and eaten, he looked only slightly less likely to kill. Charles pretended his hair needed straightening out as they dawdled in the doorway. Maybe it even did, a little.  
"Look on the bright side," Charles said. "Imagine how mad Jean is going to be at him."  
Magneto did smile at that, and kissed Charles affectionately. "Why _doesn't_ Krakoa have a hangover drug? I'm sure it would be a very profitable addition to our line of pharmaceutical miracle-cures."  
"Yes, but it might help human productivity too much for us to risk exporting it."  
Erik laughed, though it had a slightly hollow ring.  
"I'll save it for you, then," Charles said, "the next time your masculine pride makes you go drink-for-drink with a mutant whose powers make it almost impossible for him to experience anything past a light buzz."  
"Damned if he doesn't try for it, though," Erik said, wincing again.

Charles kissed him, and brought their foreheads together. He rooted around gently in Erik's head, and Erik sighed in relief.  
"That feels wonderful," he said.  
"The unsung benefits of having a telepath for a partner," Charles replied cheerily, and put his helmet on. "It'll wear off, so I wanted to save it for while you've got to put up with others."  
"My greatest weakness," Erik agreed, knowingly overdramatic. "God, you're lovely. Did I say that, last night?"  
"No, but I think you complimented my eyes."  
Erik, without his helmet, was quite dashing. There was something almost opulent about the way the light reflected off of him. The white suit, white hair, flash of white when he spoke, made him seem almost hard to touch. He looked like a film star from the black and white films Charles loved when he was a child. Most impressive was that it was almost impossible to guess that the Mutant Master of Magnetism had been dead drunk a few hours ago. Charles smiled warmly as Magneto extended an arm.  
"Shall we?" Magneto said with a wry smile.  
Charles took his arm and they talked business all the way down.

\---------------------------------

Of course, it was the problems Charles wasn't paying to that were the really dangerous ones. He hadn't given any real thought to Genosha at all, though even if he had, he wouldn't have been able to see any of this coming. Who the hell could have predicted Scarlet Witch would somehow find a new way of catastrophically screwing up, and that this time it would involve necromancy? They just had to hope what they had was enough to handle it regardless. He made a mental note to check on whatever Apocalypse was doing, later.

Magneto cursed under his breath, rubbed his face with a gloved hand, and Charles knew he was fairly close to losing it. In fairness, Charles thought, he wasn't sure losing control wasn't actually a very measured and appropriate response to the latest Krakoan crisis.  
"Fuck," Magneto said plainly. "Goddammit."  
Charles opened his mouth to speak but Magneto wheeled around, pointing a finger at him.  
"Charles if you say anything asinine like 'Warren will handle it', I swear I'll blow something up. And it'll be in _your_ house this time."  
He put up his hands in conciliation.  
"Mutant zombies, I swear to God," Magneto said, beginning to pace. "I should have plunged Genosha into the bottom of the fucking ocean after they bombed it. I should have--"  
"--Would that have stopped her?"  
Erik looked up at Charles. Neither of them could properly see the other with the masks on, but they'd be needed any second, so they made do. They could fill in the gaps of each others' faces fairly well by now. Charles would swear blind he knew exactly what each shadow on Magneto's face hid.

Of course, Magneto was also keeping the helmet on as a courtesy. Out of some misguided sense of lone martyrdom, he didn't want to overwhelm Charles with what was going on in his head. Which, of course, Charles would have to see sooner or later, but Magneto wasn't in any mood to be thinking about the future right now. He was firmly stuck in the past.  
"I've been avoiding thinking about her," Magneto said, and Charles knew that was true. "You know the children on Krakoa have started speaking strangely? I think it's a combination of the Krakoan language and a distinct lack of supervision. They call her the Pretender. The Great Betrayer."  
"That's... not a good sign," Charles agreed. "I've heard reports."

Charles didn't like that the mutant canon already had a scapegoat, but he could always bring it up with Nightcrawler. Religion was never really something Charles needed, but he respected the power of story in culture, and he wanted theirs to be a good one.  
Magneto sat finally, leaning back, his cape shifted like water. "I suppose they're not wrong, in a sense."  
"Erik," Charles warned.  
"She committed a kind of genocide against mutants, Charles. I don't know how forgiving you need me to be but I do have lines that I won't allow to be crossed."  
"We undid that act, or we're currently undoing it. And I'm not asking you to forgive. I'm just worried that you'll do something rash."

That was something that Magneto could do one of two things with. He could blow up over it, or--Erik tilted his head to the side and gave Charles a slightly raised eyebrow. Who, me? Rash? Never.  
Charles smiled sympathetically. He could see the muscles on Magneto's arms taught as if he was physically restraining himself, and Charles knew there was an inner war going on with the sizable chunk of Erik's consciousness that was persuasively clamoring to run through the nearest gate and break something.

"Have I ever mentioned how much I hate magic?" he asked finally.  
"Take it up with Doctor Strange," Charles said, and offered an arm. Erik took it, came to his feet, and they stood for a moment with their arms locked. Erik was looking down at him.  
"Can I count on you?" Charles asked, knowing the answer. He was really asking if Erik was all right, but he'd learned to ask in ways that Erik could answer.  
"I'm here, Charles. Let's go."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stuff that's canon this chapter:
> 
> Ugh mutant zombies on Genosha is real. Also Logan got Magneto drunk to steal the helmet. I just added the bit about who had to deal. All that stuff with Franklin is true, and my abiding belief that Reed Richards is the biggest prat of the marvel universe continues to be confirmed.
> 
> Jamie Madrox's below-6-foot skinny ass, carrying 200 pounds of drunk supervillain up a hill because Professor X wanted a nice view from his kitchen: "Come to Krakoa, they said. It's paradise on Earth, they said."  
> Remy LeBeau, missing a date with his unbelievably hot wife for this: "Shut up shut up shut up"
> 
> Yes Jamie was in the recent issue of Empyre and has been seen in the Green Lagoon but I picked him for this because he's genuinely funny and neither he nor Gambit have mutant powers that are particularly useful here. Also, if it seems like Magneto picks on Bobby too often, please keep in mind that he had to live with the young X-Men for a bit two years ago and bless him but young Bobby is a dumbass.
> 
> If the next issue of Empyre doesn't address how fucked up it is for Magneto to even have to think about undead mutants on Genosha I will be writing a strongly worded letter.


	7. "No, Charles" and other outrageous ideas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What the fuck, Empyre. Also, what the fuck, Cable.

"Sorry I'm late, Charles. I had a frankly awful conversation with Emma."  
"Bad news?" Charles asked, handing him a cup of tea and reclining back into his seat. Magneto pulled off his helmet, offering a reassuring smile. Erik took a sip, setting it down at his spot across from Charles.  
"Nothing earth-shaking," Erik said, gloved hand flourishing in a dismissing gesture. He didn't sit down, though, instead he pulled his cape off as he walked down the hall, continuing their conversation. "Well, not for me, at any rate," he called from the other room as he changed into something he could sleep in. Charles idly watched his back flex in the mirror. "Emma's furious. Did you know about her daughters and the youngest Summers, then?"

Ah. Yes, Charles could see why Erik might be a bad person for Emma to try to seek reassurance from in this... particular case.

"I'm trying my very hardest _not_ to know," Charles said, frowning, as Erik reemerged. "The girls are rather unpracticed in restraint as regards their psychic communication, it seems, and for once it's really not my responsibility to teach them anything."  
Erik sat down and took a moment to re-familiarize himself with the board, left over from the last time they were playing.  
"There was one thing I wanted some clarity on," Charles said, aware that he was grimacing a little. How to put it diplomatically? "Nate isn't... well, he's not seeing them all at the _same time_ , is he?"

Erik laughed. "No. At least, not as far as Emma seems to think. They go on separate dates, Charles, and I'm beginning to feel like something is afoot on this island, because I can't be the only person who thinks that's a little gauche."  
Charles sighed, rubbing his temples. "I know I said no discussing the children, but what _is_ it about the Summers boys and telepaths?"  
Erik grinned solicitously and Charles knew the exact joke he was going to make, without even having to dip into his mind.  
"Erik, darling, if you so much as utter the words 'daddy issues' I'll cheat the next thirty games in a row," Charles said, and moved his rook. That was enough time to let Erik think, he decided, if Erik's thoughts were going to be so bloody predictable.

"It's not like I'm any better, really. The whole time Emma was going on I felt rather under attack, especially after she'd had a few glasses. 'Why must men fixate so much on telepathy's sexual applications?'" he mimed, in his slightly scarily good Emma Frost impersonation. Erik's powers moved a pawn. "Yes, yes, it's terrible. Men are disgusting, the way they chase after telepaths like that. Only want _one thing_. Truly terrible, Emma, thanks ever so much for dinner but I really must be getting back before you remember who you're talking to."

Charles could imagine it well, with the way Erik was describing it, and couldn't force back a quiet laugh at Erik's discomfort. He moved a piece in response to Erik's surprisingly defensive strategy.

"It didn't work, of course. She accused me of being a fetishist, which is a _very_ personal charge to have levied by one's work associate over the third course of a private dinner."  
"Poor Erik," Charles intoned. "Stigmatized for who he sleeps with." Erik moved his piece in the exact way Charles expected him to.  
"It's not fair," Erik said, lightly ironic, watching Charles immediately respond with a bishop on the board. "Half the mutant population seems to be sleeping with some combination of Emma and Jean. Nobody calls _Scott_ a fetishist."

"Everyone on this island calls Scott a fetishist. You and I both made somewhat heavy handed allusions to the idea some thirty seconds ago. Although, Scott does exhibit some variety in his interests, lately, which is more than can be said for you, darling."  
"Can we please stop throwing around the word 'fetish' for a moment? I'm trying to focus," Erik said, frowning at Charles' knight as if it might give up. "Variety? You know for a fact I've fathered one to three children, depending on who's counting. Have I mentioned lately how much I hate magic?"

"Yes, darling, exhaustively. And those were with human women, Erik, who, let's be honest, you're not very convincingly attracted to these days."  
"Nor are you!"  
"I'm not the accused, here, Erik."  
"Perhaps you should be," Erik said, suddenly a little more amused. "I'll admit I have a... preference for a specific mutation if you do the same."  
"Erik, I'm afraid the truth in our case is so much more boring. We're simply the last monogamists on Krakoa."  
Erik laughed. They were, in fairness, quite old, even if neither really showed their full age. It was bound to happen someday: the kids were doing things they didn't understand, and their job was now to sit, slightly baffled but nevertheless supportive, on the sidelines and make sure no one was getting hurt. Erik was still grinning as Charles picked up his rapidly cooling tea, despite being thoroughly trounced on the chessboard.  
"Does this mean you wouldn't mind if I stopped using my powers when I'm convincing you to sleep with me?"  
"Let's not be too hasty," Charles said over the rim of his teacup.

\-------------------------------------

"Alex is sort of associated with your daughter," Charles said, floating the idea almost absently. His mask was faced away from Magneto, and a sort of neutral, thoughtful pursing of the lips was all Erik had to go on. They were in the House of M, and Charles was being absolutely relentless.  
"No. And she's not with him, actually. I've asked."  
"It's just a conversation. Perhaps a tiny, insignificant apology."  
"No, Charles."  
"It'll be over in fifteen minutes."  
"I've got the helmet on, so you can read my lips. I am _not_ going to the fucking moon to check in on _your_ son. The last time I went, I saw enough to be unable to look Ms. Grey in the eye for a _week_."

"Scott's father seems to think we're _both_ vaguely paternal over him, actually. I only skimmed his mind, don't look at me like that, it wasn't a competitive thing. When you and I met, before the Phoenix... debacle, I told you much the same, and you agreed then."

The word 'debacle' was really pulling its weight in that sentence. Only Charles Xavier would talk about his own violent death at the hands of the Dark Phoenix controlling Scott as if it were a minor social faux pas. Magneto wasn't going to let him run with that argument, though. He put a finger up.

"Ah, no. You admitted _you_ saw them as children, and our children at that, which I agreed with. There's a line between paternal and paternalistic, Charles. You have paternal, occasionally patronizing affection for Scott, and more broadly for mutantdom. I feel a sense of paternalistic obligation towards mutants. It's not the same."  
The same difference between caring for Scott while Charles was... gone, because he cared for Scott, or because Scott was his... partner's son. But Charles was back now, and Magneto was happy to be taking up the role of a sort of no longer intimidating family friend. And Scott Summers did _not_ need his emotional support over all this Hellions business. Erik had been a little... blunt, when suggesting that Alex would have been exiled if the humans had died, but it was true, and Scott needn't have overreacted. After all, the humans _hadn't_ died, and Alex wasn't banished. Honestly, Erik was only paying half attention to most of it, absently touching Charles' thigh under the Autumn table. Which was probably why Charles felt so guilty over Scott's hurt feelings, Erik supposed.

"Semantics. This falls under the umbrella of paternalistic obligation."  
"We aren't having this conversation. Scott is your problem, and you're going to handle it."  
"Fine," Charles said. "We'll talk to him together."  
"I'm sorry, I thought your mutation was telepathy, not selective deafness."  
"No, I simply thought that you might like to come with me, since I can telepathically guarantee an hour's privacy for the two of us at the springs on the way back."

Erik glared at him, thoroughly annoyed. He couldn't even see the full insufferable expression he knew was on Charles' face.

"Someone really needs to learn to say no to you and mean it, one of these days," he said, getting up finally. "This isn't good for your ego."  
Charles was smiling now. "Not you, of course," he said.  
"Someone else," Erik agreed, amending himself easily. "Lead the way, old friend."  
Now _that_ was a euphemism.

They were almost at the gate when Erik had to bring it up again.  
"Bullshit, it wasn't a competitive thing, by the way. With Corsair, I mean. I call utter bullshit, Charles. You're just as territorial as the rest of us sinners, and you don't like competition for Scott's filial affection."  
"I'm sorry, what was that? Was the great mutant supremacist you-have-new-Gods-now ideologue trying to argue that I'm _only human_?"  
"I resent being called an ideologue, Charles," Erik demurred. "I'm a man of action."  
Charles made a slightly mocking noise of agreement, and Erik felt a momentary frustration that he couldn't kiss Charles with the stupid helmet on.

\-------------------------------------

"No, Charles."  
"You know I'm right. Empirically speaking."  
"Empirically speaking, I think you are vastly underestimating the costs. What's going to happen is you're going to bring him back, and he's going to do something vile, and you're going to have to waste valuable time and effort putting him down again."  
"I think, of anyone on this island, I have the most accurate estimation of the damage Farouk can do. I've taken the costs very much into account, but wasting an afternoon taking him down doesn't outweigh the potential. You've said it yourself. Telepaths are overworked, and crucial to this island's defense, and Krakoa must stand, and therefore..." Charles waved his hand.

Erik looked angry, yes, but there was something under the fury. And none of it was directed at Charles. They were stood in the garden within the House of M, and Erik took off his helmet carefully, like he needed the space to think. He wasn't looking at Charles, and his white hair curtained his eyes from Charles' angle.

"There are other telepaths," Erik said. So now they were on the bargaining stage.  
"We're bringing them back too. This is an all-hands-on-deck time for the island, and we have plenty of people to handle him if it goes wrong."  
"Charles," Erik said, forcefully, trying to wrest control of this argument back, leaning in and facing Charles properly. "I won't stand for it."  
"I thought all mutants are welcome on Krakoa," Charles said, tilting his head. "Even the inconvenient ones."  
"Don't fucking quote me out of context, Charles. Even I'm not that much of an absolutist. I can say that and mean it while still objecting to recklessly bringing back Farouk at a time where we have precious little resources to spare watching over him. There's a vast difference between the likes of Empath and the Shadow King."  
"Oh?" Charles said. "What is it, exactly? Because to me they both seem to be mutants with severe mental health disorders, whose powers are very much tied to their exhibited lack of control."

Still, it was a good point and well said, as always. Arguing with Erik felt natural in a slightly terrifying way; this was how Charles had delineated the boundaries of his soul decades ago. Erik eyed him as if his response were a bit pedantic, and Charles supposed it was. The bigger mutant pulled away, giving the telepath a bit more space, giving ground physically even as he drew up his counter.

"Empath is a victim, Charles. His powers meant that he never learned how to be a functional member of society, and he developed an extreme hedonistic sociopathy. Amahl Farouk is a sadist telepath with no fucking excuse, and he tortured you for _years_. You're not bringing him back just because you're too far up your overeducated rear in some grand multidimensional chess game against time to see the obvious."  
"Erik," Charles said softly. "I'm not in any danger."

This was probably a bad time to mention it, so Charles didn't, but it had technically been more of an indeterminate, yawning prism of time stretched out indefinitely in the astral plane. Charles was good at compartmentalizing, thankfully, and it was safely contextualized in his mind. Honestly, Charles had never felt this powerful, this in control. Not, at least, since he was a young man, and he and Erik were as far as he knew the first two mutants in the world, staying up into all hours of the night circling each other verbally, unable to stop watching each other with a heady feeling of history.

"It's not about danger, it's about hate. Just because he wouldn't be the version of the Shadow King that did those things to you doesn't mean I don't utterly despise the man for it."  
"I know. Which is why I feel safe bringing him back."

Charles' hands came to Erik's chest, and Erik's powers took Charles' helmet off. They looked each other in the eye for a moment, and Charles felt oddly vulnerable. Erik's steel eyes searched him, and Charles was reminded that no one, least of all Farouk, would ever understand him the way Erik did. And no one would ever trust him like this, either. He wasn't sure if he deserved it, but Erik was here regardless.  
"This is absolutely insane," Erik warned, after a long pause. Charles kissed his cheek. "I want it noted that I voiced my concern in the strongest possible terms. And I won't be held responsible for what happens if he crosses you."  
Read: what I do to him if I've decided he's crossed you in any capacity, Charles thought, smiling, as Erik kissed him. Strong arms encircled his waist.  
"I still think you've got your head too far up your overeducated rear," Magneto said, but it lacked a certain conviction as he leaned down to kiss Charles again.

\-------------------------------------

Inside the Arbor Magna, Erik paced relentlessly. His cape twitched and billowed, flaring out under what was essentially magnetic fidgeting, resembling a storm front more than a fabric. Hope kept making eye contact with Charles, like he was going to change his mind any minute, and jerking her head at Erik as if to ask if he was going to do anything. Charles wasn't really sure, couldn't really be sure without checking, and it was really for the best if Erik kept his helmet on.

"You ready?" Hope asked again, as if Charles' answer would change from the last time she asked.  
"Charles," Erik said, but didn't seem to have anything to say to back it up.  
Charles nodded. Erik was here, that was the main thing. He offered what he hoped was a confident, benevolent smile.  
Out of a rather large orange sphere came Farouk's disconcertingly shadow-clad form; massive and strange and empty. He saw white out of his periphery, felt anger leaking out of Erik's helmet, and he worked very carefully. They'd discussed this, too.

Once the Shadow King was more or less whole, Charles stood.  
"Farouk," he said, and his voice was mild, "welcome to Krakoa."  
The Shadow King's awful smile was a bit difficult to watch.  
"Professor," the King said, smile still somehow unfurling to show more and more teeth. "I assume there are no hard feelings."  
He wasn't talking about the torture. He didn't know. This was a Farouk from before he'd done that to Charles. It was important to remember that. He probably meant one of the other million things the Shadow King had done to him and his children. This felt a little futile, Charles found he really did hate Farouk in that moment.

Charles felt Magneto surge forward, and raised a hand. "Actually, Farouk, we've brought you back on a sort of... probationary basis. Krakoa is a new home for all mutants, you see, but all those who would live here owe a debt to it, and you owe rather more than most."  
"Ah," Farouk said, his voice taking on that echoing purr that some telepaths enjoyed projecting. Charles was comforted by the fact that he could feel Farouk's tendrils of shadow, and they didn't scare him. He directed them slowly but surely towards the information he'd decided Farouk was safe with. Quite simply, he was a different class of telepath with Cerebro on, and even without it he was certainly stronger by leagues than when Farouk had captured his consciousness, at such a low point, the day of the beach. "So you need me. Charles, you should have simply said as much."

"Charles thinks the island could use more telepaths," Magneto interjected. Farouk turned his terrible beady eyes towards him.  
"And what do you think, Master of Magnetism? I--" suddenly Farouk was frowning. He'd seen it in Charles' mind, then, and only because Charles let him.  
"You'll have to forgive Erik, Farouk. I've brought back a version of you which predates a rather egregious crime you've committed. I'd recommend steering clear of some of the island's inhabitants, nevertheless. There are a lot of people here who you've hurt."  
"I think," Erik said, in answer to Farouk's question, "that if you so much as draw breath within a hundred yards of Charles Xavier I've got plenty of ideas about what to do with you from what he's told me about his time in the astral plane. I wonder how they'll translate to a physical body."

Hope and Goldballs exchanged a look, and Hope shrugged. Farouk wasn't exactly intimidated, but he seemed unhappy, and at least Magneto had warned him. The ball was in Farouk's court. In the interest of following Magneto's sensible play, Charles explained the laws of Krakoa with a patience and a clarity that was unmistakable. He ran down Farouk's obligations in terms of island security, and explained that for now he'd be mainly confined to their restorative facilities for now, and checked in on regularly. Interestingly, both Kwannon and Elizabeth Braddock had offered to do the job, and between the two of them Charles was more than happy to wash his hands of the responsibility. When he'd come back from Farouk's control, the girls were sharing one body, with Braddock in control, and she had made him a promise to put Charles down if Farouk turned out to have his black claws somewhere in his psyche.

Charles told Jean to pay closer watch to Storm, whose fragile state Charles did _not_ want Farouk interfering with. He ensured that Farouk couldn't go anywhere near the island's children or otherwise vulnerable, with a considerable mental block, but that was it, really, and he turned Farouk loose on the world with not insignificant misgivings.

Erik stood behind him, arms clasped behind his back, watching Charles with a sort of open concern. Wordlessly, he nodded towards the path that led back to the House of X, and they went up. Charles must have been subconsciously seeking comfort, because he went straight to Magneto's head the second the helmets came off.

"Charles, Charles," Erik said, crowding Charles, sounding a little tired but almost painfully sentimental. "What am I going to do with you?"  
"Actually, I was rather hoping for some garden variety false reassurance."  
Inside Erik's head was that maelstrom of protective panic and amused endearment and all the other confused, sincere devotions only Charles ever seemed to bring out. Magneto felt Charles looking and let Charles in, and offered his thoughts up. There was a time when this would have been anything but comforting, and yet now Charles found himself relying on it. Erik kissed his forehead.

"Don't worry, darling. If you made the wrong call this time, I'll at least get an outlet for my more violent tendencies."  
"Yes, Erik, you can see why that sentence wouldn't be helpful."  
"Why is it that every clever thing you do has to almost uniquely hurt you? Why couldn't you make a decision for the good of Krakoa that hurts, say, Wolverine?"  
"We decided to welcome Omega Red, and you threw Logan out of a gate, dear. Remember?"  
"Yes, well, if it had been you at the gates instead of me as the first responder, you would probably have offered to let Omega Red stab you as some sort of welcome-to-Krakoa peace offering."

Erik had smoothly transitioned Charles into a bit of harmless bickering, Charles realized. A bit of masterful manipulation that Charles was extremely grateful for. He tried to hold onto that gratefulness early the next morning, when Sage woke him through the comms to explain that Magneto was beating the shit out of the Shadow King in the middle of the Carousel, and that Jean had told her to hold off on getting him so that Magneto could get in a few good steel beams to the ribs. Apparently, quite a crowd had gathered.

"You love him," Charles said to himself, quite sternly, as he dressed himself. "Farouk probably said something horrific. He's actually a very accommodating person, and he's doing his best, and it's too late not to love him by now."

Sage came through on her Krakoan channel again to add that Magneto was lifting one of the metal platforms on the Carousel, luckily one of the ones that hadn't yet been occupied by various restaurants and public squares. Charles decided that now was a good time to remember that Erik was the strongest, most heartfelt man he'd ever met; had saved his ass more times than he could count; had gone to bat for him; had dropped everything a hundred times to be where Charles needed him; and had really quite an incredible figure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So one panel at the end of Empyre suggests they brought back the Shadow King and at first glance that seems like... a bad idea. At sixtieth glance, though, it actually still seems like a bad idea. So I figured that this was somehow what they landed on when the Council realized they were short on telepaths. Farouk had canonically been torturing Xavier's consciousness (for, idk, fun) for a while before the Krakoan plan started. I figured they wouldn't really have a copy available from then for obvious reasons, so they'd be using an older copy. Well, now at least Empyre has introduced something messed up to happen to Magneto AND the Prof, which is almost better than addressing any of the messed up things they've brought up.
> 
> Cable is dating all three of the Stepford Cuckoos. He's a teenager, right now, so that's not... as weird... as it could be... God, Krakoa is getting strange. Also someone's pointed out that female telepaths are literally all like crazy hot and people are often very weird about it so I decided it's a power that can sometimes attract the wrong sort of attention. This is really Marvel's fault, if you think about it, for associating the power with sex so often.
> 
> Oh yeah, and I've decided that Emma and Magneto occasionally hang out ever since Giant Size Magneto, because Erik likes her cook and Emma is the only person on the island who can keep up with his catty supervillain drama vibes.


	8. Paradise isn't a place, but it's definitely not Staten Island

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm waiting on a few series to wrap up before I can talk more about them and I'm planning out quite a lot. Also I can't keep up with Cable so I've preempted the ending and I'm just daring them to disagree with me, because I want Stinger to have a happy ending, randomly, and goddammit _date night_

Erik fashioned a reflective surface out of the metal wall, adjusting his tie. Charles, somewhere beside him, huffed and batted his hands away.  
"Honestly, Erik," Charles said. "You're such a perfectionist--"  
"--Pot, kettle--"  
"--Yes, yes, but you must understand, Erik, we adjust ourselves for the audience. With the humans, everything needs to be perfect. Not a hair out of place, not a collar askew. But this is for us, and darling, you're simply so much _handsomer_ with your tie loose."

Erik hummed, and leaned down to kiss Charles. "I'm beginning to feel like eye candy, Charles. This is all very objectifying."

"I'm sure," Charles said, mostly not paying attention, mussing his hair just so. Satisfied, he stepped back, only to be crowded again by Erik chasing another kiss.  
"We do actually have to go to New York, Erik. Business first."  
Erik pulled them together, tilted Charles' head with a terrifyingly familiar ease. His lips were an inch from Charles' and his face took on a mocking, negotiative character. "Business second," he said.  
"Business second," Charles agreed easily.  
Erik kissed him and pulled away with a contented grin. "Think of it this way," he said, as Charles put his hands in his hair. "Now you can really mess up my tie."

In New York, eventually, they had a family to visit. Cable's unsanctioned little investigation (no doubt inspired by too much time with 'Uncle' Logan) had cost Stinger and Omerta their quaint suburban lifestyle. Neighbors that had once seen them as slightly exotic and largely harmless now saw them as attracting trouble; lowering the all-important _property values_ ; either openly or apologetically unwelcome. And not to mention the more physical matter of their house being blown up.

In a show of good faith, Charles had Scott put them up somewhere safe and, frankly, a little more exciting than tame New York suburbia. The Tribeca apartment was spatious, close-ish to the Washington Park Krakoan gate, and designed for three-plus, and okay, perhaps Charles had gone a little all-out, but the degree of obligation here was rather staggering on the part of Krakoa. He really did need to have a conversation with Cable about which members of the Summers, er, _household_ he wanted to emulate.

"You know, the last time I met him, he was a raging homophobe," Erik said, amused. Charles had to shake his head clear for a moment, to realize Erik was talking about Omerta. "I mean _during battle_ he was accusing one of his gay teammates of trying to cop a feel."  
"I think I was dead or something, when he joined. And then you... what was it?"  
"Fairly sure I threw him into the upper atmosphere. Stinger was always a sweet girl, though. For one of us, you know, bad guys."  
Charles laughed. "Isn't that the way of it?"

The irony of a homophobic X-Man was not lost on him, though he'd been told Omerta's attitude changed rather quickly. And the repentant, slightly dickish X-Man met the sharp, likable so-called bad guy, and they built a terrifyingly ordinary life somewhere, which charmed the hell out of Charles Xavier.

He stepped out of their car, and Erik followed, straightening his suit jacket smoothly. Beside him floated a briefcase, suspended by its metal fastens. They were greeted by the doorman, and managed to go the entire elevator ride without any untoward behavior, and then the apartment. The space was earth-colors, simple but undeniably warm. The kitchen by the door opened straight into the dining room, which in turn melted into a living room, which ended with a view of the Southern end of Manhattan. Stinger was putting the baby in a handsome wooden crib by the futon, and Omerta watched her from the bar with a lovestruck expression. Altogether, they made a wonderful image of a mutant family, now a little interrupted by Charles and Erik's presence.

"P-professor," Omerta exclaimed, as he stumbled to get up off the bar stool.

* _A sure sign of a former X-Man,_ * Erik thought in his head. * _No one takes you for a teacher these days._ *

"Stinger, Omerta," he said, and shook Omerta's hand. He pulled off Cerebro nodded at Erik, who obligingly hovered the helmet in the air with a flourish. "Lovely to see you both again. We came to, ah, personally express Krakoa's sincerest apologies for Cable's enthusiasm. I hope you believe we never meant to cause you any inconvenience."  
Stinger looked utterly convinced, but Omerta's lips pursed just a little. The poor man had lost his powers, though, and Charles could understand why a man in his position looked at Krakoa a little differently.  
"What do you think of the apartment?" Magneto asked, stepping in gracefully. "Charles can't stand anything approaching minimalism, I'm afraid. Bookshelves everywhere."

"It's gorgeous," Stinger said. She and her husband exchanged a look over Magneto and his polite countenance, and of course back in their days he hadn't exactly been an ally. Thus the importance of the slightly askew tie. "Really, it's very kind of you to put us up here. We'll make sure to take good care of the place until we can find something."

Charles' eyebrows shot up. "You misunderstand. It's yours. I have the papers here, which put the apartment in your name so long as you sign and have them sent in to our people," he said, gesturing at the briefcase in the air. Erik obligingly opened it, and Charles passed them a file, looking between the two. "Or, if you'd prefer another property, or location, of course we'll cover the expenses. In that portfolio, there are a few other options. This falls under a very good school district, you see, or I'd never have recommended it."  
"Wait," Omerta said, frowning. "Wait."  
Stinger's hand went to her mouth, and they looked at each other for a moment.  
"We can't possibly accept this," she said slowly. "It--it must cost millions."

Six and a half million, plus change, Charles was fairly certain. He smiled, shook his head easily. "Trust me when I say it's nothing to our current budget. The human pharmaceuticals industry is _depressingly_ profitable. And this isn't just out of a sense of responsibility for young Cable's actions--"  
"--Although it definitely is that," Magneto said wryly, looking out the floor-to-ceilling windows, arms clasped behind his back.  
"We've got the money to ensure that no mutants suffer, and I intend to spend it. I'm not looking to force people to relocate to Krakoa, and the Quiet Council has made very explicit that even those of us that do relocate can still have things here, have a life here. I'm sorry we've already disrupted yours as much as we have."  
They both looked a little shell-shocked.

"Honestly, I thought you'd come here to give us the sell," Omerta said. "Paradise on Earth, and all that."  
"Paradise can mean quite a lot of things," Charles said, watching Magneto look out towards the Atlantic. "I don't know that I believe it's a place."  
"Charles Xavier's paying our rent," Stinger said, voice a little hollow.  
* _Sugar daddy to all of mutantdom,_ * Erik thought, lip twitching. Charles laughed.  
"Oh, no," he said, recovering with a dismissive hand-wave. "We owned the property. We own the building, in fact. And, I believe, the two across the street. This one has a better view, though, and better facilities for children."

"Charles pays attention to that sort of thing, of course," Erik said, leaning back against the window now with arms folded, eyes on Charles'. "Having been a glorified babysitter for several decades."

"Which reminds me," Charles said, pulling out the remaining items from the briefcase. "A few toys for the young mutant, and a bottle of Erik's favorite parental aid."  
He proffered them the teddy bear, teething toys, and the expensive bottle of wine.  
* _Dinner,_ * Erik reminded him gently. They'd reserved a table at a restaurant with a very well known mutant chef, though Charles was in all likelihood going to give them a bit of telepathic privacy.  
* _Dinner. We're about an hour and a half late for our reservation._ *  
* _Somehow, I doubt they'll hold it against us._ *

As they were leaving, Stinger hugged both of them, and Charles raised an eyebrow at Magneto before putting Cerebro back on. He urged them both to visit Krakoa whenever they pleased, and reassured Omerta that one's powers were not requisite for crossing through the gates, though he refrained from explaining the Crucible. He'd leave that to whoever showed them around. Magneto gave them a few words on the final item of business.  
"If you ever need anything," he said, "or if anything ever _darkens your door_ , let us know."  
"Oh," Charles said, foot out the door. "And if you are staying, call us when it's time to start thinking about colleges."

"So," Omerta said about a minute after they'd gone.  
"So," Stinger echoed, still leaning against the door.  
They looked at each other and broke out laughing, a little giddy over the shock of it all. Stinger wiped away tears.  
"Did you know they were together?"  
"No. You?"  
"No," Omerta said, sighing. His face hurt a little from laughter. "And I'm fucking glad I didn't, little bastard that I was back in the day. Magneto nearly killed me as it stood."  
Which, of course, started Stinger back up again, which finally woke the baby up.

\-------------------------------------

Charles came home smiling so widely Cerebro couldn't seem to contain it. Which, of course, could mean only one thing: Erik had wasted his evening at a funeral for someone who didn't need one. Once again.  
"Charles," he said, and wanted to shudder at how utterly _saccharine_ the sound was.  
"She's back," he said, grinning. He pulled off Cerebro to reveal bright blue eyes, tiredness temporarily banished. He practically leapt into the hug that Erik offered. "We did it. Well, _Emma_ did it, really. The problem was in Kate's powers so she just, well, took temporary control of Kate's body inside the egg. Obvious! Didn't I say it would be obvious, once we figured it out?"

"And I suppose the reason why Emma knows how to control Kate's power is none of our business."

"Quite," Charles said, looking up with a flash of eyebrow at the insinuation. Kate's mind would have been empty when Emma accessed it. Through his telepathy, Charles knew more or less how to mechanically access Erik's powers, not just tell him how to use them, but only because they were _shamelessly_ familiar with each other. "Just like how I'm going to have to politely pretend not to know Shaw is involved. Honestly, Emma treats me like I haven't got a brain."  
"She treats everyone like that," Erik said absently. "It's part of her charm."  
"Although," Charles said, with a suddenly faraway look. "We still need to figure out what's going on with regards to Kate and Krakoa. I'd like to see that fixed, and now that she's back we ought to run some tests. Hmm, and I wonder if Lockheed's presence made the process easier. Notes for next time."

Erik's hands had already tightened on his hips, though.  
"Wait, Shaw _was_ involved? Why aren't we at the Black Keep _right now_?"

"Emma kept me out of a little private conversation she was having with her Red Queen. I'm assuming they're going to handle the matter. Lockheed confirmed it for me, though. He killed her."  
"Charles," Erik said, plaintive.  
"Erik, no. Emma's job is to handle Hellfire, she has to be allowed to handle it. Think of it as a test of her abilities."  
Erik looked disbelieving at that. Emma Frost had, after all, been the one to kill Shaw before Krakoa.  
"Fine," Charles said. "Think of it as indulging the girls in a little good, old-fashioned revenge."  
"I was fairly certain _I_ had first priority on the long list of people who deserve to be allowed to murder Sebastian Shaw."  
"That was before Kate jumped up a few hundred places when he _killed her_ , Erik, and besides I don't actually know what Emma has planned. I'm betting she'll build a case for banishment, but you might very well still get your chance."

Erik grumbled a little, but settled down. Charles seemed to be particularly energetic, burning through all the emotion he probably would feel uncomfortable displaying in public. The telepath sat down after him, still smiling, and leaned on Erik's shoulder. Erik took his arm and kissed the back of his hand affectionately.

"Congratulations, Charles. I must say, though, what a waste of a speech."  
"Oh," Charles said, waving a hand. "It was a short one."  
"And what a waste on Carnation's part to design a funeral wardrobe for Ms. Frost, considering that was quite possibly the last funeral in Krakoan history. Though, I suppose, she can always find other uses for, ah, thigh-high black boots."

"An _interesting_ choice, I thought so as well. But, we all grieve differently."  
She had actually been deeply upset, Erik knew, which was interesting. In the time he'd known Emma Frost, he'd never thought her prone to any undue melancholy. Suddenly Charles shot up.

"Oh my God," he said. "He came to the funeral, the smug bastard. He brought _flowers_."  
Charles was right, Erik had almost forgotten. He was a little busy worrying about Charles, and feeling a little vaguely uncomfortable.  
"You could have stripped him of his place on this island ages ago if you'd just read his mind."  
"I doubt that," Charles said. "He must be hiding his thoughts somehow. Another matter that bears investigating, but it suggests he's got outside help. If Emma doesn't handle things right, Erik, I promise to hand the matter off to you. I'm too sorely tempted to _lobotomize_ the man."  
Charles' protective streak was, privately, enough to give Erik's a run for its money. One of the many things Erik enjoyed about his oldest friend.  
"Don't flirt so shamelessly when you know we both don't have time to spare," Erik chastised.

"I'm just... very relieved," Charles admitted. "A part of me is furious for ever having let this happen, but you've some idea how much of a weight this is off my chest."  
"Your chest, or your supremely overworked brain?"  
"Either," Charles said, exhaling. "Both. I would really like to sleep for about a thousand years."'  
"I can cover you for, ah, _twenty minutes_ \--"  
"--Erik, I was joking. Well, exaggerating."  
"No, you weren't, but I'll pretend for the sake of your delicate pride that I believe you."  
"Such a gentleman."  
"I'm glad Kate's back," Erik said. "She was a welcome addition to the Quiet Council. Her empty seat gave too much room for Shaw's ego to spread."  
She was also one of Charles' precious children, more important to him than any ideology. Having her off the board imbalanced Charles, and at a time where he needed to be particularly sure of himself. Humans sniffed out weakness, Erik knew. He thought back to their first truly important resurrection; when Charles brought back Scott and Jean and his other children from their successful, suicidal mission. He remembered tears streaming down the telepath's face, leaking out under Cerebro. Or how Charles had cried out, with an alarming urgency, when Kate had been attacked on Latveria. He'd suspected, then, that they wouldn't be able to bring her back. Charles would be fine, with a bit of rest, so long as he didn't lose anyone. Or perhaps that was Erik projecting.

\-------------------------------------

"Guess who made a visit through the Washington Square gate," Charles said, not looking up from his stack of papers. Erik groaned as he entered the House of X.  
"Wade Wilson, yes, I know. Lorna's got the shark bites to prove it."  
"Wasn't the shark Quentin's?"  
"How much can a man ever really be said to own a shark?"

Charles just sighed dramatically as Erik hit the couch hard, resting his legs on the armrests.  
"He's decided in retribution for getting his red behind handed to him that mutants aren't welcome on the kingdom formerly known as Staten Island."

"Oh no," Erik said, dripping with sarcasm. "Not _Staten Island_."  
Charles hummed agreement. "It wasn't exactly my favorite borough even before it seceded."  
"The only downside to your plan to halt climate change is that we save Staten Island from sinking into the goddamned ocean."

As always, Erik had found a more emphatic way of putting it, and Charles couldn't stop a bark of laughter.  
"Let Namor have it," Erik continued. "That would be about the man's speed."  
"I'm still worried it sets a bad precedent," Charles said. "The way he happened to phrase his... let's charitably call it a _law_ , was rather tactless. He stuck a sign on the docks that reads 'No More Mutants'."

Erik made a face like he had a bad taste in his mouth. Charles found he quite agreed, and on top of everything else he was dealing with today, he realized that he was actually in a terrible mood. Interesting. Hopefully all this business with Wade would largely be ignored, but Charles liked to be prepared for anything, especially when it came to Krakoa, or men like Wade Wilson.

"I'm thinking between Rogue and Wolverine we should have someone try to reach out to him. It was a bit stupid not to have treated him as a foreign dignitary."  
"A foreign dignitary who wrecks everything he touches, and speaks in nonsense references that no one understands."  
"Glass houses, darling. That could _very_ easily describe either of us."  
Erik ran a hand through his hair, pulling it back and away, smoothing its wildness, and Charles went back to his papers. The fire crackled, and the words seemed to jumble incessantly. He had the rather itching intrusive thought to shove the stack of documents into the fire.  
"If the soft approach doesn't work, let me know if you want to toss it to me, or Lorna for that matter. I know Sage ran the numbers on him and they're concerning, but frankly, Charles, we're an island of Gods and he's beneath us."  
"Famous last words," Charles said, distractedly. Once upon a time, Charles might have chided Erik for his hubris, at the least, if not his outright supremacy. In recent years, he'd found that the more effective technique was light ribbing. Besides, Erik was a good thing in his life and these stupid diagrams would have already defeated him if he couldn't look forward to Erik's company later.

"What are you reading?" Erik asked, shifting a little to take a peek.  
"▪︎-|A|-▪︎'s grimoire."  
"His what?"  
"It's a sort of magical doctoral thesis; or perhaps more like a manifesto, crossed with some kind of astrological cookbook, as far as I can understand. Which... isn't very far."  
Erik winced. "Is that what you've been in here all day with?"  
"I'm going to be in here all night, too, and tomorrow, if the rest is this confusing. Every page I read seems to require me to go through new materials. The other stacks of notes on the kitchen table are all tangential stuff. A bit of history, a bit of thermodynamics, a lot of astrology. I have done _so much reading_ about Otherworld and reality processing and cosmic conduits and I don't understand a word of it. Did any of Wanda's rambling ever stick with you, by any chance?"

Erik shook his head. "You know my policy on magic, Charles. I can possibly help out with the thermodynamics, and anything beyond that I'm not touching with a ten foot pole."  
"Braddock says ▪︎-|A|-▪︎shared this in the interest of being transparent but I'm not so certain. I think there's a chance he could just be stalling for time. At this rate, it'll be weeks before I feel confident enough to assess whether any of this is evil or not."  
"You need to talk to a magic user. I'm getting painful flashbacks of learning to read English from your stupid books."  
Charles groaned. "I have never in my life come back from a conversation with a magic user _less_ confused about magic than when I'd begun."

Erik tilted his head in concession. That had been his experience as well. Magic traded on the currency of belief, and Erik was fundamentally a cynic. He could believe very fervently in things, but only those which had been proven to him, and magic had never proven anything but a headache. Charles might have had an easier time of it, if his mind were structured a little differently. He'd gone into the minds of a few magic users, and they were staggeringly foreign to him. If he could just take a look at the thing a little more holistically...

"That's it! Can you ask Lorna to loan me young Prodigy tomorrow morning?"  
"I think the X-Factor are on the island for now, you can tell her I told you. They're even busier than us, though. Prodigy's a clever choice for a tutor."  
The young man's powers meant that he absorbed knowledge from anyone he came near. He couldn't perform magic himself, but he'd know how all the pieces fit together. He really was an exceptional young man. The idea of Charles Xavier needing a twentysomething tutor was still, however, a bit funny. Perhaps afterwards, he could help set up Charles' _emails_.

"Just to have him look it over, make some notes," Charles said. "Betsy's notes actually made this somehow _less_ intelligible. Also, there are occasionally horoscopes interspersed within the cosmic engineering diagrams and they're weirdly... personal. Why does it say that this is an inauspicious year for twins?"  
"Don't ask me," Erik said, arms raised.  
"Why not? You _dress_ like Walter Mercado."  
Erik laughed, which went a little ways towards smoothing out Charles' bad mood. "Tell you what," he said, pulling Charles into his arms. "I'll tell your fortune, but only through the next hour."  
Charles quirked an eyebrow.  
"Hour and a half, if you're cooperative. I can promise _complete_ accuracy."  
The telepath considered his oldest, most important friend. His partner, which was a rather lovely thought. Erik's expression was charmingly roguish. His hair was misbehaving. He took up a vast swathe of the couch, and really Charles knew he was shamelessly trying to derail the conversation away from magic theory, but even knowing that it was a play Charles couldn't help but be a bit swept up in it. Erik was first and foremost a force of nature, and Charles was just the man he acted tame for.  
"Well," Charles said, pushing away the stack of papers. "That's already a vast improvement on _real_ magic."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stinger and Omerta were kinda cute as a lil couple in Cable #2, I feel like they're gonna end up in Krakoa but I think it would be shitty if they get pressured into it. If anything happens to their baby before I get to even learn the name I will be sad. Omerta was a biiiig homophobe when they introduced him b/c walking stereotype
> 
> Marauders #11 fixed my soul. I WILL be writing more about it. Nobody's said anything about whether or not Charles knows about Shaw, but at this point it's silly if he doesn't (he could have read Lockheed's mind just as easily as Emma did, for example) so I've decided he's just gonna feign innocence when questioned about it because he wanted Emma to have her fun. Charles said Emma and Kate can have a little revenge, as a treat. Solidarity. 
> 
> In a move that can only be described as utterly Sebastian Shaw, the guy did have the gall to go to Kate's funeral, which was proven defunct within the same issue. The crazy part is I'm not even sure that's a record for the X-Men.
> 
> Charles: I am under so much stress, the humans are burning me in effigy, I want to hibernate for two millennia  
> Erik: yeah I got like, twelve dollars
> 
> Deadpool visited Krakoa, and they had to sorta politely turn him away, and slightly kick his ass, like sorry but please leave, we need this place to survive past the next two issues. See Deadpool (2020) for why Staten Island is currently his kingdom.
> 
> Apocalypse, pronounced ▪︎-|A|-▪︎, is planning to give mutants unfettered access to Otherworld and also prolly a lot of evil stuff, and I don't know how to make it clearer that absolutely none of us understand where this series has been going. Betsy Braddock Captain Britain is excellent tho. See Excalibur, but first take two headache pills.


	9. Plants and grandchildren

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one's a bit short as I'm tryna work out if I wanna do something different with X of Swords.

Magneto walked off the battlefield feeling strangely serene. The invading army of Cotati were reduced to woodchips and plant-viscera; and the battlefield was littered with metal. Using Magma and Iceman to produce all that coarse iron had worked better than his wildest dreams, and he was reminded again how much easier things were with Charles' X-Men around. He pulled his helmet off and instantly felt Charles' presence, boosted through the island by his network of telepaths and the Cerebro relay. Charles was at the Arbor Magna, under watch of what Erik decided was inadequate security. That, he decided, warranted a talking-to. Erik diverted his path towards the great tree, the beating heart of the island, and Charles Xavier. Well, not so much a diversion as an inevitability, in the exact opposite direction he was supposed to be going. He landed to walk up the long, flat steps into the shade of the tree. Charles was doing something, but Magneto couldn't find it in himself to care.

"Charles," he said, with a respectful little inclination of the head. His hands were clasped firmly behind his back when all they really wanted to do was attain tactile confirmation that his telepath had gone uninjured.

Charles Xavier had no such delusions of propriety today, it seemed, and their roles were oddly reversed as Charles took him by the fabric of his suit and kissed him, grinning. It took some doing, kissing around Cerebro, but this model was the one that framed the lower half of his face in the space under the X, and Charles seemed very determined.

Surprise stopped Erik from responding for a moment, but that was remedied rather quickly, and by the time Charles separated them again, he'd quite forgotten why he was surprised Charles had kissed him in the first place. Hope Summers groaned somewhere behind the telepath.  
"Pro _fess_ or," she called. "No rush or anything, but we've got, like, a _lot_ of mutants to revive."  
"We'd have a lot more if it weren't for you," Charles said to Erik, still grinning.  
"Is this for good behavior? Are there any more plants you'd like me to murder?"  
Charles laughed, threw his arms over Magneto's shoulder and rested his heavy head on one as Erik's arms wrapped easily around him.  
"I'm serious," Erik said quietly, full force of his solicitous smile betraying him, "I can find more satellites."  
Charles kissed him again, and Erik watched Hope roll her eyes, arms folded, tapping her foot and pantomiming checking a watch. Erik just grinned into the kiss, turning his attention back to Charles.

The telepath was the one to break away again, with a little straightening-out gesture of his fingers gliding against Magneto's red costume. He tapped on it with the back of his knuckles and looked up, and Erik knew he had an eyebrow raised. Erik rolled his eyes.  
* _What was it you told me, Charles? We adjust ourselves for the audience._ *  
"Thank you, Magneto," Charles said, clasping his own arms away. "You acted utterly _heroically_ today. You'll be the toast of Krakoa by sundown."  
"I can't tell if you're winking under Cerebro, Charles. Go, bring us back, I'll see you soon."  
"You were supposed to debrief with Beast twenty minutes ago," Charles said, with a knowing tone.

Because Erik was a hopeless, romantic old fool, and damn it, he'd saved the day, he _deserved_ \--  
* _\--Erik_ ,* Charles' voice echoed in his head, stopping his trail of thought with an amused but emphatic bit of telepathy.  
"Fine, yes, going," Erik said, arms raised in surrender. "My God, a man saves your island and his reward is a _security debriefing with Beast_."  
"Still here," Hope said, texting on her phone.

Around ten hours later, both men were exhausted; reclining in the moonlight from the House of M's obnoxiously tall, elegant bay windows. Magneto's bedroom was a study in graceful arches and silvery metal which by rights ought to have felt cold and impersonal, but it didn't. There was always something alive about the things Magneto created with his powers, even long after he'd shaped them. Charles liked this version of the House of M better; he knew objectively that some of the metal was from a Sentinel but Erik had made it something different altogether here. He was almost reminded of the treehouse the children had built, that he and Erik had visited towards the beginning of Krakoa, along with some of his X-Men. Erik had approved of their no humans sign, and used his powers to help them finish construction.

"Thank you, Erik," Charles said. Or reiterated. He'd definitely said that already.  
"We had it all under control. Your children would have done the same."  
"They would have," Charles agreed, shifting to better face Magneto. "But we needed you. Besides, I actually meant to say thank you for not killing Amahl Farouk. The extra few telepaths were helpful with evacuation."  
Magneto nodded, looking up at the faraway ceiling.  
"Beast says you're much too forgiving, Charles. He says he's been trying to get you to commit to some way of recognizing guilt in mutants, publicly, and that you've been dodging it because you _trust us all_. He thinks you're too soft."

"And what do you think?" Charles asked in the pale light, tracing a hand idly over Erik's chest.  
"I wouldn't be here if it weren't for your extraordinary capacity for forgiveness," Erik said, catching Charles' hand and kissing over the back of his fingers. "And Beast is a bit... well, you know better than I do."  
Charles just hummed.  
"All of this has been the easy part," Charles said finally. "In a sense. Precarious, and fragile, but easy compared to what might be on the horizon."

In the back of Charles' mind there was a sword. Sometimes he even fancied he could see it, dangling over his head, held aloft by fraying rope. Swaying in the breeze. He felt the sensation of it occasionally at the nape of his neck, raising gooseflesh when he contemplated the stakes of their failure. It wasn't an option. The sword couldn't be allowed to fall. Erik knew what he was doing when he made Charles a sword out of the broken pieces of Cerebro; he was upturning the ten of swords. He was staving off that awful feeling of a drop. Erik had looked him in the eye and handed him salvation.

"Are you afraid?" Erik asked. It was the same question he'd posed Charles when Krakoa was only just born, when Charles brought back his children.  
Charles smiled gently at the memory. "Not today," he said. "Not after watching you."  
Privately, Charles was surprised Kurt hadn't already tried to _canonize_ Erik. The children of Krakoa were already telling stories around the campfire of the savior of Krakoa, the legendary mutant hero, Magneto. Charles was looking forward to the inevitable form of public recognition Erik's heroism had earned, though he was thinking of a couple different ways it could go; ranking them from most to least embarrassing to Erik.

Erik kissed him, wrapped in all sorts of odd directions on his pretentiously massive bed. "You're taking tomorrow morning off," Erik said.  
"Oh? That's news to me," Charles said, too tired to put the proper amount of humor into it. "And how do you know that?"  
"Because _I'm_ taking tomorrow morning off, and I finished the sauna downstairs yesterday."  
"Christ, of course you've got a sauna. I take it all back, Erik. You were on the right side of things all along. You villain types all know how to _live_."  
"Now you can't bribe me with anything. I actually had better change a couple things about it," Erik said, half to himself. "Magik got in a little too easily, even for an emergency."  
Charles made a noise of agreement, letting his eyes fall shut. "You should count yourself lucky I'm not the jealous type."  
Erik let out a breath that might have been a laugh or a sigh of exhaustion.

Magik might have gotten an eyeful, but Charles had the best seats in the house for the day's mayhem. He watched from the minds of the others on the battlefield as Magneto fought with that blinding, self-righteous, devastating intensity. Magneto, let loose, was a _tempest_. 

"It was strange," Charles said out of nowhere. "Seeing you in red again. Good strange. I..."  
"Ticked a few boxes for you, did it?" Erik asked, a flash of white teeth in the dark.  
"I can see this has all gone straight to your head," Charles said. "I don't even know if I'll fit in there at this rate, with all that ego."  
Erik wasn't done teasing. "Reminds you of all those years we spent, staring longingly at each other across our divides," he said, mock-dramatic. "Like retirement-age Romeo and Juliet."  
"I did not _stare longingly_."  
"That is hands-down the worst lie you've ever told, Charles. I thought you were supposed to be a _role model_."  
"It was more like a... concerned disapproval."  
The former Professor knew from years of practice that he was actually quite good at the concerned-disapproval look. Erik wasn't having it, though. He put a calloused hand under Charles' head and kissed him. "Longing," he said, falling back onto the bed with a finality.

Charles couldn't stop a fond smile. The worst part was that, as usual, he wasn't wrong. Charles could see it. All the other times Magneto had saved the X-Men, what felt like lifetimes ago, and always a temporary arrangement. Erik was meant to be a protector, it was the most integral part of him. Professor X had waited for a long time to see Magneto the way he'd seen him today, without any strings attached.

"It felt good to me as well," Erik admitted. "All of this... feels right. We can handle what will come."

One strange side-effect of the telepathy was vivid dreaming, and Charles honestly couldn't be sure he wasn't dreaming now; it was probably something approaching four in the morning, and Charles always was a bit of a dreamer. It was easy to feel like he was sleepwalking, it was a good dream. The Sword of Damocles felt faraway when Erik was around. Perhaps his powers would hold it aloft. And with that childish, impossible thought, Charles was asleep.

\---------------------------------------------

Erik was awake, reclining in his seat at Charles' kitchen table. He'd made tea and toast, and left a cup out to cool for Charles. It was early in the morning, early enough to watch the fog clear and the island's color slowly bleed in. Everything was utterly serene. So serene, in fact, that one might never have guessed Erik had choked on his tea only a moment ago. He cleared his throat for a moment, and quieted back down, but he couldn't quite leave things be.

"Charles," he called absently, somewhere vaguely behind him, unable to draw his eyes away from the morning's mutant tabloid. Sinister's little publication was a phenomenal hit across the island, and the various diasporas of mutantdom. Not, of course, that Erik would admit, even under pain of torture, to reading them. Rather, he profited off of a happy coincidence wherein Lorna's subscription was still being sent to the House of M, while she'd moved out to the Boneyard with the rest of X-Factor. Charles, it appeared, had no such hangups, and it was delivered by Krakoa in the morning with a few papers.  
"Yes, darling?" Charles called back, dressing himself in a hurry. There was a meeting in an hour with a round table of Eastern European bloc states, many of whom were being reticent in accepting the new status quo. Charles would handle them. The former professor gave the best dressing down Erik had ever been witness to in his _notably_ long life.

It was a _dressing down_ that bothered him now, in fact. Splashed over the glossy center pages of Sinister's magazine was a gay bar in mutant town, New York, and announcing for a rather risque drag act was someone doing a very convincing impersonation of Professor Charles F. Xavier, civil rights icon and co-founder of the mutant nation of Krakoa. The picture was good enough to make out the detail on his black spandex, just a touch thinner material than the genuine article, and Erik was having a difficult time focusing on his toast. He cleared his throat, pinkening.  
"Were you, by any chance," he said, affecting an air of nonchalance, "in Manhattan this weekend?"

Charles emerged, fiddling with his tie. "No," he said distractedly. When he'd finished fussing, he looked up and saw Erik's expression. "I don't think so. What was this weekend?"  
"Plant people invasion, security meeting, X-Corp reshuffling and..." Magneto trailed off, gesturing to Charles. He'd remember whatever Erik had left out. Erik casually did up the buttons on Charles' vest with his powers in the meantime, allowing his gaze to drift back down to the image on the page.  
"... And that business with the girl. The dreams one. No, I wasn't in New York. In fact, I haven't left Krakoa in a while, we've been so busy with resurrections. Why, is there somewhere you'd like to try?"

Erik grinned and passed the magazine over to Charles before he could put on the helmet. He watched Charles' eyebrows practically jump off his face.  
"Well," Charles said. "That's interesting."  
" _Interesting?_ "  
"It's a very good likeness," Charles said, frowning now. His eyes scanned the page.  
"It's better than that. And it's only been picked up by Sinister's publication thus far, but I can guarantee your, shall we say, _stand-in_ is going to make the local section of the Times by Tuesday."  
"Isn't that your grandson in the audience?"  
"What?"  
Erik snatched the magazine back.

Sure enough, in the far corner Erik saw the telltale crop of shock-white hair in short curtains. He'd managed to completely miss that detail. The little speedster was watching the show with unmitigated glee, and dear Lord, was that _Prodigy_ with his arm around his grandson? Not-grandson? Did Lorna know her teammate was seeing her semi-nephew? "Technically they're not my grandchildren any longer," he said. "Magic incursion."

Charles rolled his eyes. "Yes, of course, because I see _no family resemblance there_ ," he said gesturing with the back of his knuckles at the open page. It was a fairly won point: the little brat was the spitting image of Erik as a young man, if quite a bit skinnier. "The rainbow pin on Cerebro is actually a nice touch. I bet we can do better, though. Remind me to get onto Carnation about some nod or other. Maybe a pocket kerchief for the human suit."  
"You know, if you _really_ wanted to make a statement--"  
"--Yes, Erik. Mind reader," Charles said, tapping his temple knowingly.  
"I think it would be a little more exciting than a rainbow kerchief on a black suit."  
"We are _not_ going to see a drag show, Erik, good Lord," Charles said. That fond, amused, slightly disapproving little smile played at his features, though. "Act your age, darling."  
"What, dead?"  
"Very funny."  
"It's _far_ too late to start at this point, Charles."

Charles laughed. It was a sound like champagne glasses meeting in the background. It was a sound like Erik had won a point in their neverending verbal sparring match, and Erik luxuriated for a moment before they inevitably had to get serious.  
"This isn't going to hurt anything, is it?" Erik asked.  
Charles tilted his head thoughtfully, picking a piece of toast off of Erik's plate. "No more than any of the other strong public hints," he said finally, giving the magazine one final glance. He rapped a knuckle against the show onstage. "Technically that's an arrestible offence in two of the states I'm visiting this week, but then, so is being mutant. Just in case, I'll bring some extra security."  
"Sensible. I suppose it's too much to ask that I get signed on for that."  
"Pouring gasoline on a fire, darling."

Erik affected a put-upon sigh, but Charles ignored it. He finished eating Erik's toast and downed his own lukewarm tea like a shot.  
"Besides," he said, kissing Magneto's cheek, "apparently I need you here to fight off every invading force in the universe."  
Erik's hand moved fast enough to catch Charles' jaw as he was turning away and pull him in for a proper kiss. It was nice to know that even after however many godforsaken decades, Charles still had to take a second to retrieve his wits. In the meantime, Magneto watched Charles blink the fog away.  
"I fully expect a Skrull army any minute," Charles said, waving a hand out at the island as he stood and smoothed his fingers over his jacket.  
It was a cute joke. The Skrull didn't fuck with mutants, not since they tried it with Storm in Wakanda. Oh, but that reminded him. There was the other grandson.

"Since we were speaking of the grandkids, has anyone reached out to Wiccan again recently?" Erik's tone was one of muted insouciance, but Charles saw straight through him.  
"I'm running _very_ late, Erik," Charles warned. "You are not allowed to rope me into an argument about whether or not we should be recruiting that poor boy. I honest to God have no idea what would happen if Wiccan tried to step through a gate."  
"Surely, he's still a mutant, even if he's not related to me? Even if not, at this point it's out of principle. No magical non-grandson of _mine_ is going to be an _Avenger_ ," Erik said, letting the full force of the venom he felt for that particular distinction bleed into his voice. He'd seen Wanda and Pietro go down that road, and he was fairly certain he'd never finished a conversation with Tony Stark which didn't involve a micro-aggression.  
"He's not with the Avengers right now. You know darling, I think holding a grudge just might be your secondary mutation. You've got such a _gift_."

"Tell me you don't hate those muscle-brained, popularity-obsessed, punch-first-ask-questions-later lunatics, just a little. Tell me you weren't secretly just the tiniest bit disappointed that Wolverine agreed to be their little _diversity hire_."  
Charles sighed, hand on his hip, but he very tellingly said nothing.  
"At least young Thomas is with a mutant," Erik demurred. "Don't give me that look, Charles, you knew what you were getting into with me."  
"This explains why Prodigy was sweating bullets when I brought him to the House of M to look over the grimoire notes. I didn't think it would be polite to check."

Erik tried not to be quietly pleased that there was still _someone_ on the island that feared him; now that he'd been informed that children regularly composed _nursery rhymes_ about him. When the hell had he gone from problem mutant to kid-friendly?  
"About the same time they started printing tee shirts of you," Charles unhelpfully chipped in.  
"Ah, so this is all _Quentin's_ fault."  
"Like some sort of gay, mutant Che Guevara."  
"Weren't you supposed to be somewhere important?"  
Charles rolled his eyes affectionate and kissed Erik's forehead, dashing out.

Now Erik had to report to Hank and help Cyclops roll out all the new candidates for mutant power combination. He'd had the rather bright idea of dragging Hope along for that; who could usually instinctively tell whose powers were going to be compatible just a little faster than Henry McCoy's aggravatingly intelligent mind. Magneto enjoyed the challenge of finding little ways to make his cooperation more entertaining than it would otherwise be, and it was fun watching her run circles around Beast.

Besides, he liked Hope. He remembered meeting her, on Mutopia. He remembered her conversation with Charles. He remembered flirting shamelessly with Charles while they built the island a new Cerebro. That was before it all went wrong, again. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say it was a brief interlude between things going wrong. An easier time. This, however, he thought, surveying the island from Charles' vantage point, was a _better_ one.

It was as if Magneto had summoned news of his onetime grandson through sheer force of stubbornness, and he mostly regretted it. Charles tossed the invitation onto the table. It read: " _Emissaries of Krakoa are Hereby Invited to Attend the Wedding of Theodore Kaplan-Altman; King of the Kree-Skrull Alliance and William Kaplan-Altman; King Consort and Mage to the Court_."

And it was _tonight_ , the eager little bastards.

"We have to send someone," Charles said. "Prodigy is going to attend; if nothing else I don't want him to be the only Krakoan in the room."  
"It can't be me," Erik said firmly. "It's simply not apporpriate, given the way I've handled things. Them. Even before all this business with the fabric of reality changing. Besides, I am not going to share a room with a bunch of drunken, celebrating Avengers and my no-longer-daughter. Certainly not after the mess she made in Genosha. I wouldn't want to cause a scene."

"Oh, there'll be a scene no matter who _we_ send," Charles said, and fell to sit next to Erik on the couch. "The Cotati played the Avengers for fools, someone's bound to point the finger of blame. You and I certainly can't be there, regardless: I've been reliably informed the Richards family are going."

Erik clutched his chest and made an offended noise, eyes raised to the ceiling as if to ask the universe what he'd done wrong. "That boy," he said.  
"It could have been Hulkling that invited them," Charles pointed out unhelpfully. "We still need to send someone. Who sets the right tone?"  
"First you have to decide what tone it is you want to set," Erik said.  
"That this isn't our business," Charles said firmly. "The Avengers can go off and mess about in space while problems rail here on Earth, but Krakoa will stay grounded for now."  
"So, no one important," Erik began, snaking his arms around Charles' waist.  
Charles just nodded, lost in thought. "No Council members. But, we want to show that there are elements of this we respect. Namely, Wiccan, and the first gay Jewish quasi-mutant space wedding."  
"You know, sometimes I'm glad I lived this long," Erik said. "No one important, but no one insulting. You're narrowing it down. Scott?"  
"Good _Lord_ , no. Captain America, darling, remember? Put him in jail, you busted him out, a bit of back-and-forth. Ringing a bell?"

Erik laughed, and kissed Charles' cheek. "Scott can be diplomatic. He takes after his _father_."  
The telepath luxuriated on the couch, catlike, posture somehow perfect despite being tangled with Magneto. "It's simply too much to ask. I'll send Wolverine; he's already on the moon and he's been watching over young Franklin for me, so he's seen the young King recently enough. If he can put up with Reed, he can put up with the rest of them. And we'll send an expensive gift from the two of us, along with an open invitation to a _diplomatic_ reception on Krakoa."  
"Excellent," Erik said. "Glad that emergency's behind us."  
Charles sighed his agreement. "Fancy a drink?"  
Erik's powers found the brandy.

"To the first gay Jewish quasi-mutant space wedding," Erik said witheringly, to which Charles voiced hearty approval, and they toasted their glasses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The stuff that's canon in broad strokes is that Magneto single-handedly (plus Bobby and Magma) SINGLE-HANDEDLY defeated an invading army of plant people that were hyped up all summer as some sort of big bad (X-Men 11). And yes the bit about the drag is one hundred percent real thank you Chip Zdarsky and Lords of Empyre: Hulkling.
> 
> Do I understand the situation with the Maximoff side of the Magneto family? No. But do marvel writers understand the situation with the Maximoff side of the Magneto family? No. It's a soft, tentative retcon, and I'm trying to reconcile it with Magneto, who's always suddenly a family man where reality-warpers are involved.


	10. Champions and net losses, aka the X is for Xtra Power

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Only a short chapter because I'm trying to decide what I want to write about X of Swords and how I want to write it, which should be starting in earnest now.

* _Charles,_ * Erik called in his head. A long-distance shout. Charles could feel his panic, his concern. * _The cradle, at the House of M, it--_ *  
* _\--Yes, I know. There's something wrong with resurrections. We've just lost Rockslide._ *

He felt Erik's emotional state spike, and telepathically reassured him that, yes, Lorna and Charles were both fine. And, Council meeting ASAP.  
Outside the hall, Charles was feeling a bit fuzzy. Erik pulled his helmet off the second he touched down, and he was at Charles' side just as fast.  
"You're bleeding," Erik said, lightly terrified.  
Charles passed a tongue over his lips, and Erik was quite right. How he must look, Charles thought, with fresh blood pouring out of a nosebleed, about to brief his esteemed colleagues on his own monumental failures. Erik was ahead of him, wiping the blood away with his cape, of all things.  
"Sit down," he ordered, and Charles sat on a root of the Arbor Magna as Erik checked him over.  
Magneto had long ago figured out how to use his powers to perform a perfectly functional MRI. This was back when they were in one of their enemies-on-good-terms phases; but Erik had never really bothered with a plausibly deniable not-Charles-related reason to have worked at the trick. It was a funny sensation, though. Charles rooting around in Erik's mind and Magneto checking Charles' brain.  
  
"You're all right," Erik said, more for his own sake than for Charles'. "You're fine. No damage. Just--maybe a light concussion."  
Charles nodded, and felt a distinct fogginess that confirmed Magneto's hypothesis when he took the man's hand and came up.  
"Thank you, Erik," he said, and meant it. Erik's steel eyes were still on him, but they softened for a moment.  
The other Council members had filtered past them as Erik had forced Charles to sit still. They were waiting now, and couldn't be made to wait much longer.

Throughout the meeting, Charles could feel Erik's rising panic. To learn that mutants die forever if they die in otherworld. Erik knew perfectly well what that meant: the bargain struck with Arakko was very possibly a death knell for ten mutants. Rather than a war; ten mutants must draw swords and compete for Krakoa against the Arakkoan champions. A sort of ceasefire; or a sort of sacrifice, depending on how one saw their chances. And considering how quickly the Arakkoans had brought Apocalypse to his knees, those chances didn't feel good. Erik was every bit as much a tactician as Charles, they were coming to the same conclusions at the same time.

When Emma accused them-- _Charles_ \--of being complacent, Erik almost snarled. And then he snapped at Lorna, and Charles had to interfere to cool him down. When he'd shouted at her, though, she'd stumbled, and let loose the prophecy Saturnyne had hidden in her mind: the ten champions. Charles listened carefully, and Erik was on his feet in an instant to catch her as she fell. Strangest of all, there were only nine. Charles knew looked at Erik, cradling Lorna, and knew that this champions business was going to be... difficult.

None of the nine were Charles. None of the nine were Erik. Charles had grave misgivings about that; he'd have liked a stronger presence of what, if he was feeling particularly egotistical, one might call the heavy hitters of his faction on Krakoa. And, yet, of course, he hated the idea of losing any of them. Warlock had been called quite explicitly, and, bonded to Cypher, Charles knew they'd both take the spot. And Cypher wasn't the most battle-ready of his children. Magik, Wolverine and Cable; he was more or less at peace with. Storm, though she'd just been ill. There were too many unknowns, and the stakes were too high. This war tournament would be something which tore the island apart, or solidified it as a nation. This was what had been on the horizon, Charles thought. Magneto, privately, concurred. An ugly hatred for Apocalypse flared momentarily in Erik's subconscious, and Charles relented to it only so far.

Charles stepped aside at the entrance to the Council hall. He tapped Lorna on the shoulder.  
"Oh," she said, momentarily startled out of whatever thoughts she was having. Charles point-blank refused to check. "It's you. Dad just came by already. Even though you told him to let me go."  
"I know," Charles said. He rested his hand lightly on her shoulder. "Are you all right?"  
"No," she said, offering a watery smile. "I fucked it all up pretty bad this time, huh?"  
"That's not at all the case," Charles said, very serious. "Your father--"  
"--Do the _work_ , Polaris," she said, nailing the cadence of Erik's voice to an almost concerning degree. "Yeah, I know. He apologized. I know he's just letting off steam. It scares him, the whole situation."  
"He doesn't get to take it out on you. I'll talk to him about it later."

Lorna shrugged, still holding stone in her hand. Rockslide's... body, Charles supposed. His armor? "I never thanked you, you know. Dad's been really happy. Sudden outbursts aside. And I appreciated you stepping in back there, with him. Or trying to."  
Charles considered her. Lorna was still young, still finding her way in a world that had changed a lot in the last few years. She'd gone from having a family to whatever this was, this new House of M that was just herself and her struggling father. There was a confidence she used to have that Charles sensed was lacking lately. Maybe she should have been leading X-Factor, after all. Or maybe old men needed to stop thinking they knew what was best for her. He took her into a loose hug, careful not to upset the contents of her arms, and released her after a little while. After she'd had a chance to breathe. He searched her face.  
"I'm going to tell you something, and I need you to try to take it to heart: your father is not the only person on this island who cares about you. Say the word and I'll put him on daycare duties for a month."

That won him an actual laugh. "I was honestly worried for a moment you were going to ask me about Alex," she said.  
Charles tilted his head, before he realized he wasn't wearing Cerebro and he could actually convey emotion with his face. "Honestly? If I have to talk about the romantic life of a Summers one more time I'm going to do something drastic."  
Lorna smiled at that, but her face became a little distant. She hugged the rocks closer to herself, tellingly. "Just... you and Dad. You have to promise me it's not going to be in vain."  
"My dear," Charles said, lips pursed for a moment. "I'm afraid the problem is that this time it's been taken almost entirely out of our hands."  
Something flashed across Lorna's face. A recognition. Charles didn't push further, but Lorna obviously had some part left to play in all of this.  
"Lorna," Charles said, as she turned away. "He loves you very much."  
"You'd know," she said, tapping her head. "I'll talk to you later, Charles. What was it you said to me, when all this had, like, just kicked off? I'm being summoned by our poor, neglected friend Krakoa."

Charles didn't want to make excuses for Erik with the child, but Magneto was doing his best. They'd work it out.

That night, Erik and Charles visited Apocalypse. They couldn't be entirely sure he'd even remember it; delirious as he was with pain. Stepping in and out of death. Charles knew that on some level, Erik enjoyed that Apocalypse was suffering the pain he'd inflicted on so many others on this island, including his daughter. Charles himself was furious, but he tried to temper it with his concern. If not for Apocalypse, then for Erik. For Polaris. For Rictor, and Hope and the rest of the Five.

The Ten of Swords had been well and truly drawn from the cards, and Charles was experienced enough to know to play with the hand he'd been dealt.

\------------------- 

They'd had what felt like their twentieth Council meeting since Apocalypse had returned from the Otherworld, almost murdered, bearing the news that he'd signed mutantdom up for a war they'd never wanted. And then they'd both kept full days; preparing and talking and plotting. Low on sleep, high on pressure. Their first night without interruption together in a while, and they knew they both needed to use it to talk. Just to relieve it; let off steam. They couldn't even muster up the wherewithal to play a game, but Charles poured them both an appropriately stiff drink in his little habitat.

"Not that I condone reneging on one's principles," Charles began. Never a good beginning, but, well. This was them. "But I would have quite liked to have taken a picture of Sinister's face when you changed your vote."  
Magneto turned his nose at the idea of sending the Hellions out to a black-ops run in Otherwold, when they knew that permanent, non-reviveable death was possible there. But the Council majority ruled that the Hellions go, and Magneto had only really lent his vote to ensuring that _Sinister_ go as well. As team leader, it was only appropriate, after all. And the overdressed prat said something vaguely insulting about Polaris. But that really wasn't what Erik was focusing on, at the moment. He rubbed his face, felt like pinching himself.

"What the fuck is going on," Magneto breathed to himself. He sat, leaned forward in Charles' armchair as Charles passed him his drink. "Is--is Sinister trying to sleep with fucking Havok?"  
The telepath shrugged, made a half-half gesture. "It's a bit hard to gauge. I was under the impression that he only sleeps with--himself. You know, clones."  
"Disgusting," Erik said with an almost amusing depth of feeling, sipping his drink.  
"Do you want to talk about what's actually bothering you?"  
"No. Is Cypher going to Otherworld?"

Charles sat down. "Illyana won't let anyone hurt him."  
"Nor will Warlock," Erik agreed. "That's what worries me. Those children love each other. They're a family. Well, a family and whatever weird relationship Warlock and Douglas have. And Krakoa. Charles, I swear we're the last two ordinary mutants alive."  
"I didn't like how handsy Apocalypse was getting with Rictor, either," Charles mused. "Adding this to the Kate-Emma... thing and the Cuckoos-Cable fiasco... there's a picture being painted here, but damned if I have any idea what of."

"You're delusional if you're not including your little _triumvirate_ in the odd-goings-on category. Has everyone lost their minds? What are--did Quentin manage to put those chemicals in the water, then?"  
"I honestly wish I could say that he had," Charles said.  
"I think that puts everyone on the island except for us at three degrees' separation from everyone else, at _most_. Two hundred thousand people. What do you call a group of mutants, again?"  
" _Except_ for us? Erik, _you're_ delusional if you think I don't remember your little stint with Emma--"  
"--You know perfectly well that was _for show_ \--"  
And, Charles was completely pulling his leg, breaking out into the most insufferably warm smile. Erik tried to roll his eyes as Charles settled against him, but couldn't find the resolve. "You are ridiculous," he said instead. Not even fond, just a sheer statement of fact. So why did Charles laugh, anyway?

"Only as ridiculous as circumstances demand," Charles countered. "Speaking of ridiculous, do you want to tell Rolling Stone you're going to have to postpone your interview because En Sabah Nur's gotten us into a tournament to decide the fate of the Earth in Otherworld, or should we use the usual excuse?"  
"I never agreed to that interview," Erik accused. "You just got me turned around with all your talk of SEO and media profiles and market research."  
"One of us has to live in the modern era, Erik," Charles said mildly. "And it's obviously not going to be the one in the cape."

Erik just sank further into the armchair. "Do you remember, last month, or perhaps two lifetimes ago, when we said that Krakoa was going to remain grounded, while the Avengers gallivanted about in space? How's that working out for us?"  
"Poor naïve fool, the Charles of one month ago," Charles mused.  
Erik found that mildly amusing. Naivety was one of those accusations often levied against Charles. He'd even used it himself, on occasion, before they truly understood each other. Oh, to be certain, he still thought Charles was foolish, on a regular basis. But naïve? Charles Xavier hadn't been naïve since he was thirteen years old.  
How could he be? Charles knew exactly what was in man's mind. His cruel, sadistic older brother and his pathetic failures of parents; not to mention the infinite variety of monster he'd interacted with since then. For someone like Charles, being an optimist was a fucking uphill battle. Most people with that power, Erik knew, were at _best_ morally agnostic.

This whole endlessly, tirelessly, _doggedly_ good act. The father-figure persona with the knowing smile and the empathetic eyes. It was a _choice_.

"I'm not letting him wreck this," Erik said, resolute. "Apocalypse's mistake, his miscalculation. Damn it all. If only I'd been one of the champions--"  
Erik's mouth snapped shut. "Verdammt," he hissed. How had Charles done that? They'd circled back to exactly what Erik didn't want to voice.  
"It's an agency thing," Charles said, eminently sympathetic.  
"It's always an agency thing," Magneto tried. "It's always--everything's--"  
Charles took his drink away, set it on the table. Fixed him with that stare.  
"You've stepped up enough times in the last month to warrant a damned national holiday, Erik. We are going to weather whatever will come, because we've weathered all the rest of it. I know you'd rather be on the front lines, but you need to trust our children."

Erik pictured Illyana and that sword of hers; the first champion, ready and waiting. He tried to let it make him feel better, but he just felt that pang of fear; the thing in him that always brought up the horrible possibility of--Charles' hand curled against the fabric at his chest. "They are so much stronger than we ever were," Charles said. "So much better prepared. They'll fight for their home. Let them."

It wasn't... untrue. Finally, he nodded. The panic receded a little. "I shouldn't have blown up with Lorna," he said, a little sheepish. Charles just kissed his cheek, and Erik held him. "Charles," he said quietly. "I love you. I love you. When was the last time I said that?"  
"The last time you felt you had to prove it," Charles said, tracing the contours of his face, unspeakably gentle. "Ages ago, I'd imagine. I love--"  
Erik interrupted him with a kiss and retrieved his drink from the tabletop. His telepath grew thoughtful for a moment, though, and Erik watched curiosity-concern snowball on his face for a moment; waiting for Charles to turn to him with whatever it was.

"Have you talked to the New Mutants, though, about their two champions? Three, rather, in a sense. You said yourself they're a family, and it's a family you were once part of."  
"Hm. I was just the, how to put it? The drunk Uncle. While you were dead." Erik made a dismissive gesture, but he knew what Charles was getting to, and he was happy to voice it first. "Douglas isn't a fighter. And his presence is going to make Magik only half the fighter she definitely is."  
"That's a major net loss," Charles agreed.  
"And if he dies, Krakoa faces some serious challenges going forward without his power. I don't--we shouldn't do this. I really wish there was a way we didn't have to do this. Damn Apocalypse."

"The Hellions could tip the scale," Charles ventured. "Take the Arrakoan champions' swords. Even one, and I'd like our odds much better."  
"If I thought for one second the Hellions had any chance of success I'd be out there with them, and even Empath's presence couldn't stop me."  
Charles practically shuddered. "I had to resurrect him the other day," he said. "Deeply unpleasant."  
"Yes," Erik sighed. "That's been my experience as well. At any rate. No alternatives. No cheating our way out. The boy will stand, champion of Krakoa. Even against the wishes of Krakoa himself."

"I tend to agree, as long as it's his choice to make. A few months ago I started work on a few ways to lessen Douglas' burden; I hate to say it but now they feel like contingencies. And Exodus threatened Douglas," Charles said, sudden. "I'd been meaning to relay that, actually. You should really have a word. He told me as much, he didn't even try to deny it. He thinks if we killed Douglas off, since resurrection will take a while now, we could send someone else as the tenth sword. Someone... how did he phrase it? 'Worthy', Jesus _Christ_."  
"That's not how prophecies work, I'm almost sure of it. But Exodus isn't my responsibility."  
"Oh, I'm sorry. I had been under the assumption that the Acolytes of Magneto were _Magneto's Acolytes_. Was it some sort of brand licensing, or..?"  
"Do you want to answer for every X-Man on this island, or does the X stand for X-tra power?"

"Fine," Charles said, gesturing deferentially with his glass. Erik deserved that point; he'd certainly done the leg work for it. "I suppose Krakoa will set him to rights, if he wants to."  
Erik hummed. "We should have been asleep the moment we came through the door."  
"Finally," Charles said, yawning and stretching in Erik's arms, smiling to himself. "Some good advice."  
Erik rolled his eyes and hoisted the both of them up. His cape trailed behind him; a strangely normal presence. He'd never even had the time to remove the stain of Charles' blood.

In the morning, they both knew they had just a sliver of time, but they'd worked more out of less in their long history.  
"Are we going to talk about the UK?" Erik asked, leafing through Beast's defense notes. The burnings had made the front page of the Times, and the Telegraph ran with a headline that used the word 'mutie'; sprawled out over Charles' table.  
"Oh," Charles said. "That."  
"Yes. That quaint little cultural thing where they're _burning effigies of you_."

Charles could actually feel a flicker of very real anger from Erik, which was sweet, if entirely unnecessary.

"It's under Captain Britain's purview, and she's busy. Her and her brother. Champions."  
"I still don't understand how it's both of them," Erik mused.  
Charles sighed. "It's not as if it's our biggest problem."  
"No," Erik agreed. "But it's one that I could--"  
"--No, Erik, thank you," Charles said, stamping down whatever power fantasy was going to follow those words up. Those two little innocuous words, Charles thought, almost charmed. _I could_. God, how much trouble Erik had managed to add to Charles' life with those two words. "I think it's best if we simply let them be for now."  
Erik rolled his eyes performatively, flipping another page of notes. "Yes, because if there's anything we've learned about the UK in recent years it's that _reason will out_."

"It's not important. But if it means so much to you, I'm sure no one on the Council would object to your taking over the British mutant evacuation."  
"Have I ever mentioned how annoying it is that you have to always be sensible?"  
"Not always," Charles said, vaguely amused. "A young Charles Xavier, I seem to recall, made rather a lot of decisions based on some very insensible notions."  
"Young Charles Xavier is the bane of my fucking existence," Magneto murmured, like he was commenting on the weather. "If it weren't for that overeager, intellectually seductive little pest I'd still be eking out a modest livelihood at a hospital in Haifa, never having _heard_ of the term 'Otherworld'."  
Charles hummed skeptically. "I'm not sure I buy that, Erik. What's the saying? It takes two to tango."  
Erik muttered something disparaging about the British and Charles started the slow process of steeling himself for the day.

The conversation was the excuse, this time. Neither wanted to leave the other's company, with everything as unsteady as it was. That was another new thing. Charles had gone _decades_ functioning perfectly well without needing Erik within speaking distance. Now they were back to an almost alarming co-dependency, and they were dawdling at the breakfast table. Charles got up to make another cup of tea for the both of them, and caught the grateful expression on Erik's face. Two more minutes of calm, he told himself, leaning over Erik's shoulder to read the papers he'd picked out in favor of his meeting notes.

Magneto's hand came over the one Charles had balanced on his white-clad shoulder. Without looking. Without even really thinking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> X-Factor #4 made me sad and Apocalypse is annoying as hell. He should probably leave Rictor alone that is w e i r d.


	11. Vocabulary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ANOTHER short chapter because what I REALLY need to write about is hanging on the next issue of Marauders.

They'd left the Council meeting, and by then it was almost growing dark. Scott and Jean would be wrapping up, now. Going to the tenth sword--a space station. Well, go big or go home was practically an X-Men motto by now. Erik jogged a little to catch up to him; having been stopped momentarily by Kate. Now, in the foliage, they were alone. Happy was the wrong word--Charles was terrified, still, for his children--but there was something in him which threatened to burst. Pride, he knew. God, he was so proud of his children it hurt. And when Erik called Scott _son_...  
Erik was watching him now, and Charles had learned to feel oddly stripped by that gaze even through Cerebro. He also privately loved that Erik took his helmet off, always off, when they sat at the Council together. They always had their own channel, spoke between themselves in the privacy of Charles' mind through their political disagreements. Usually, they managed to internally solve any political discrepancies, and voted with one voice.

"You _should_ be proud, you know," Erik said, authoritative. "You've done a fine job. With all of them. You don't have to feign your little emotional austerity with me."  
"He'll never settle," Charles said. "Not if one person on Krakoa is in danger. No loss of one life for the greater good, no utilitarian nonsense. He reminds me of you."  
Magneto softened perceptibly. For a moment they looked at each other as if for the first time.  
"Our children are all right," Magneto said, taking up one of Charles' black-gloved hands, kissing it. A new gesture of affection, since Charles had started having to wear Cerebro so often now. With everything happening, he couldn't afford to take it off at the moment, but it was a surprisingly intimate thing to know that Erik also understood this, and worked effortlessly around it. And he was so immensely comforted by the fact that these people around him understood. Erik, Scott, Jean. What had he done to deserve people who could pick up so effortlessly where he faltered? Krakoa would never fall so long as they could do this for each other. He didn't say any of it, but it was leaking out of Cerebro through their connection, and Charles felt a little more able to lighten the mood.

"I saw Exodus look annoyed that Scott can never seem to stop dropping the X-Men title around," Charles ventured. He was personally very satisfied at the resurrection of the X-Men proper, but only in that he was proud of Scott and Jean for upholding a sense of moral perspective.  
"I know we said no more X-Men/Brotherhood polemicizing, but X-Man has lost almost all meaning as a label," Erik said dismissively. "I got called a damned X-Man in New York last week."  
"It's got a more charming connotation when mutants use it, though," Charles said. "And you can't deny it's become a part of the fledgling culture here."  
"They use it like they're talking about royalty," Erik said warningly.  
"Oh, _please_. This coming from the head of the _House of M_."

Erik conceded the point.  
"I rather enjoy it," he said. "In a perverse way. No one has any idea who was an X-Man any longer. Everyone who needs to pick up the mantle picks it up. Jean and Scott are out right now, finding every able-bodied mutant to go on a suicide mission to Otherworld to rescue the Champions. X-Men is just another word for mutant solidarity now. I've co-opted it. Finally, after all these years."  
Charles laughed. "I think X-Men became a dirty word to humans when they saw you hurl Wolverine at a SHIELD helicarrier on a beach a decade and a half ago."  
"It's been a process of reclamation," Erik said haughtily.

Four hours later, the island had erupted into celebration; as grand and as beautiful and as profoundly exuberant as their inaugural one. The X-Men had been successful in their rescue mission, and somehow they'd been hailed the winners of Saturnyne's outrageous tournament. It even sounded more or less peaceful, with whatever rift had grown between Apocalypse and his family more or less bridged if not healed. Charles and Erik watched, as they always did, from afar. Content to let others enjoy the home they'd built. Proud and surpassed. It centered at the crudely named Boneyard that night, rather than the great metal carousels which had been populated since their original setting up.

"They're home safe," Charles said, for what might have been the twentieth time. They'd lost one, and it wasn't acceptable, of course, but Charles had a strong suspicion about Saturnyne and the impermanence of the death. Something about the methodology: Isca the Unbeaten didn't seem to turn anyone else into glass and then shatter the glass. And the Captain Britain Corps was back. It felt--unfinished. Charles could breathe easily, knowing her brother was following up on the matter. "It's funny that I was the most concerned for Douglas and he was in the least danger all along. And now he's got a _wife_. I can _feel_ that Krakoa feels something strange about it, but I don't want to dig deeper than that."  
"Charles," Magneto chided lightly. "Don't slut-shame the island."  
"Who's been teaching you vocabulary?" Charles mused. "Polaris should know better."  
Magneto merely put an arm over his shoulders as they laid in the grass. He felt his age, a little, behind his slightly artificial youth. The body, supposedly, of something like a forty five year old an the mind of--oh God, he was old.  
"It's such a strange thing to cope with," Charles said. "Sometimes I feel like I carry so much history I'll explode, and then I remember we're going to have to keep going forever, and that our short lives aren't even a fraction of the infinite, I feel weary beyond words. Other times, though?"

He gestured vaguely outwards while his mind conveyed his current state of sheer peace, and Magneto nodded. "It's not a curse, it's a gift. In the words of a very clever, profoundly annoying young man I once knew."  
"He got what he wanted, you know," Charles pointed out. "He just took the scenic route."  
Erik found he agreed heartily.

Charles was back from another grueling session with the Five, having been woken at God only knew what hour this morning. Charles was pulled up from his bed with a summons, sleep-heavy and suddenly in an intense seriousness that Erik knew better than to question, but this was really getting on Erik's last nerve. Magneto needed to have a fucking word with Hope Summers. The Five were young. Charles was not. This was patently ridiculous. He floated Charles a teacup just as the telepath sat down at the table, sinking into it like a liquid.  
"Those who die in Amenth come back different," Charles said, rubbing his eyes. He must have seen the concerned look Magneto must have put up. "Not different like Santo. Rockslide, I don't know what he's calling himself. Different as in... _stronger_. More themselves than before. A more intensified version of themselves, like a... a distillation, I suppose. Oh, God, that's bad wording, isn't it? That sounds..."

Erik darkened momentarily. The liquid metal he'd been casually twisting around in an ouroboros at the bottom of the chair lashed out for a moment like a damned mood ring. "I don't know whether the idea appeals to me or repulses me. Both, I imagine."  
"Which usually means bad things," Charles mused. "I've seen that look of yours before. The oscillating one. Give me the rest of the news."  
Charles was good at banishing. He did it with a practiced shrug of his thoughts, a sensation like smoothing over a tablecloth, which Erik was so good at recognizing that he had started to reproduce the effect in his own mind.  
"Your stocks are doing very well," he offered, thumbing the newspaper.  
Charles grinned at that. He nodded towards the cover of Forbes: Quentin Quire in Tokyo, with the tagline 'Rich Like A Krakoan'. "I noticed."  
"I suppose I don't need to remind you what happened to Argentina."  
Nobody really said as rich as an Argentine any more, and certainly not without a hint of bitterness. Even if one believed in the economic ladder to the top; to the elusive developed-country list; the ease with which certain countries had been kicked off of it could not be denied.  
"Nor Pala," Charles said, pensive.  
"So you see it too," Erik said, sipping his tea. "The two juxtaposed island nations, one paradise and one full of suffering."

"It's your fault," Charles accused. "You willed it into being by making that _Island_ reference at Davos."  
"Perhaps. But in the end, all things considered, we did well for ourselves. If only Huxley knew that one of the options was to play a nonsense game of champions from each island, and win the security of Pala on what feels like a string of technicalities."  
"I can tell you really miss Apocalypse," Charles said.  
"I'm utterly broken up over it," Erik replied, turning over the page of his papers rather emotionlessly, lifting his teacup.  
"He was always a bit too much of a Darwinist for you, eh?"  
"Charles," Erik said, casting a wry look over the brim of the cup. " _I'm_ too much of a Darwinist for me. As far as I'm concerned, losing him to the Arrakoans was the biggest victory of the whole affair."  
Charles hummed indulgently in a way that didn't entirely suggest agreement, and Erik knew Charles was aware now of the fragility of the Council, in more directions than one. The flicker of muted concern gave way suddenly when his eyes lit up.  
"Oh, but does that mean that Apocalypse is the twink that falls in love with the other island's ruthless dictator?"  
And now, of course, Erik's tea was all over his paper. "Who the hell is teaching you _vocabulary_?"  
Charles laughed openly at him. "Oh, please."  
"Honestly, Charles. At your age. It was Hope, wasn't it? I swear, one of these days--"  
"--What? I'll give you a heart attack, old man?"

Magneto made a noise of dissent. "Probably, Charles, for God's sake. If you'll excuse me, I'm late to go move a _fucking satellite_ for you."  
Charles laughed. "You don't _have_ to. Just like you could gate there and save yourself the hour's worth of travel. Just admit you want to make an entrance to show off to young Nathan."  
"I have a reputation to uphold, Charles."  
"Yes," Charles agreed. "You need to remain the, how did Hope put it? The _kids' choice_."  
"That's it," Erik announced. "If you spend one minute more of your free time with those fucking twentysomethings I'm going to demand you de-age yourself."

Erik got up, and Charles came up too, pecking him on the cheek endearingly. Erik made the conscious effort to remain annoyed, and came up short.  
"Tell Wiz-Kid I hope he's getting some mileage out of the chair, and give Ms. Brand my best. Try and make her see things from our point of view."  
"That's always been your specialty, rather than mine," Erik murmured. "How does the expression go, about boiling a frog?"  
"Yes," Charles said. "Turning the heat up slowly is the trick. Not being thrown in your already-boiling water. Just--I don't know. She thinks her work is more important than mutantdom, and in some ways it is. It's got implications for all sentient life, really. But she needs to understand that as long as she's a mutant, that comes first. Perhaps she doesn't work for Krakoa, but Krakoa damn well works for her."

"I'm using that."  
"I'll see you tonight? I'm owed another game, and you're not allowed to dodge me just because I thrashed you last time."  
"Oh, yes, catch me after I've shifted uncountable tons of metal through space. I'm sure after hours of exertion I'll be at my mental peak."  
"Oh, darling, we both know you don't have _limits_." Charles said, amused, as Erik threw away the ruined paper.  
"I'm using that too."

Magneto opened the door with his powers and tossed his helmet onto the couch. "Charles, you'll never believe who they've got up there working recon. Peter Quinn! From the Brotherhood."  
Charles leaned around the bathroom door to speak. "Quinn? Christ, that's right, I forgot to tell you! I revived him two weeks ago! I forgot to tell Wolverine, as well. Always had a soft spot for him. God, now I feel awful. Please tell me he's doing well."  
"Don't worry. I made him promise to come by for tea next week. The work they're doing, Charles," Erik said, now with a chagrined twinge of awe, "it's incredible. Quite revolutionary. I feel like Prometheus just for having been near them."  
"Well, good. You're going to be checking in on them fairly regularly, as the only Council member with powers of any use to the S.W.O.R.D. station. What do we call it now?"  
"The Peak. Is that why you voted for me to be the liaison? So that I could be of use?" Erik asked, unfastening his cape.

"Ha! No," Charles said. "I saw that Fabian Cortez was on their leadership hierarchy and thought it would be funny."  
Erik made a face. "You could have warned me," he said. "I'm almost certain the man tried to kiss my boots."

Charles grinned and snatched the memory at the surface of Erik's mind, and his grin devolved into a fit of laughter as he watched Fabian practically drool on Magneto's cape, tripping over himself to pay tribute to the great Magneto, Mutant Master of Magnetism.  
"Good _Lord_ ," Charles said. "Oh, God, I--" and lost himself to laughing again. "Christ, imagine if my students were that reverent towards me."  
"Some mistakes were made," Erik admitted. "It was a very long time ago."  
"Was it, indeed, _Lord Magneto_?"  
"No one told him to call me that," Magneto said.  
"Clearly no one told him _not_ to call you that. You didn't even remember his _name_. Wait, stop, please. I need to breathe. How was Abigail Brand?"  
If Magneto was relieved to be on a different topic of conversation, he obstinately refused to show it. Charles composed himself as they sat opposite each other and set the board.

"Good. Stubborn, but again. The work they're doing is truly massive in proportion, and to be successful so _soon_... I fear she has a point with all her this-is-bigger-than-us posturing, but I'm glad nonetheless that S.W.O.R.D. is an all-mutant program."  
"I had really wanted to wait until we were ready to start shaking things up in space," Charles mused. "But Brand and the whole Arrako fiasco pulled the timeline forward, and this represents such a good chance to get ahead of the game. It's already a more sophisticated space program than any individual nation's."

Erik went on the offense straight away. "Wiz-Kid was wonderful. I can tell I'm going to enjoy working with him."

Charles eyed him with that subtle v-smile that always meant he was about to make a good point. "You know, you work so _well_ with children... It's almost as if you should have just taken my advice however many decades ago and built a God damned school with me."  
"Almost," Erik demurred. "He's painted your old chair. It's beyond charming."  
"Good," Charles said, with a sort of satisfied finality. "A happy accident that you fit into the role perfectly, then."  
Predictably, Charles saw straight through Erik's aggressive opening moves and drew him into a longer game.  
  
"Council meeting tomorrow. We're going to have to talk about the blue elephant not in the room."  
They had two Council seats to fill. It was the first tectonic shift in mutant government.  
"Shaw's going to demand a radical shift," Erik warned. "Shaw or Mystique. Everyone's noticed."

The Council was made up of twelve votes, so ties were possible. Ties meant a stall; an inaction. Erik moved a piece, and Charles made him retreat. Twelve votes. Charles, Erik, Jean, Ororo, Kurt, and Kate were six. Everyone on the Council understood: Charles always had the possibility to force a standstill on Krakoa, and only ever had to convince one person if he wanted an action; usually Emma, but occasionally one of the 'problem mutant' table (Exodus/Sinister/Mystique). Occasionally Apocalypse. If he could swap out Jean for someone still in his sphere of influence, the balance of power wouldn't shift. That was the seat to fight over, though Erik was anxious about who would join them on the Winter triumvirate.  
"We have to throw them a bone at our table. Someone outrageous," Charles said.  
"Not him," Erik pleaded. "I don't want to smell like fish all the time."  
"Let's play it by ear," Charles said. "I want to wait to see what Emma's move will be."  
"Wise," Erik agreed.  
"Don't forget. If they don't handle Shaw I promised to kick it to you, but I'm still gunning for a banishment in my heart of hearts."  
"And who am I to deny you anything you want, dearest? I think the girls have it under wraps, though. Kate's been agitating. It reminds me of her teenaged years."

Charles melted, stupidly enamored with the sentiment behind Erik's last sentence. He also made a poor choice on the chessboard, incidentally, which had nothing at all to do with why Erik brought up teenaged Kitty and the time he spent absolutely devoted to her all those years ago.  
"So, then. We'll see tomorrow."  
"Tomorrow," Erik agreed. "Check."  
" _Bastard_ ," Charles said, wiping the fondness from his face.  
"Now, Charles," Erik tutted. "They can't all be blowouts. Give me your damned rook."  
"Yes, _Lord Magneto_."  
"Oh, for--"  
But it was too late to stop him now. Charles put a hand to his chest dramatically, taking the rook into his other hand like Yorick's skull. "--Please, accept this _loving tribute_ , a token of my undying and impossibly creepy affection--"  
"--don't say it. Don't you dare--"  
"--In return I beg only that you run your magnificent fingers through my awful ponytail--"  
"--This is just a tactic so that you don't lose, Charles, you're not subtle."  
"Perhaps," Charles admitted, surveying the chessboard. "But I am genuinely curious as to whether or not he got off on--"  
"--Charles Francis Xavier, if you finish that sentence I _will_ tell Scott."  
Charles laughed again, in a manner extremely unfitting of his age. The chess match was, unfortunately, forgotten. And for the second time in a week, Erik found himself attempting annoyance he couldn't put anything behind. He kissed Charles instead, and caught his laughter like it was poured from one body to the other. One of the quirks of their new synched-up minds.

Later that night Charles woke in the dark; probably a result of the midday nap he'd forced himself to take now that his sleep schedule had been well and truly shot to hell. Erik slept peacefully, and Charles took a moment to appreciate that, to remember all the fitful, restless nights full of horrific half-formed dreams. He watched the moonlight in Erik's white hair and thought for a moment before going out to the kitchen to make himself some tea, careful to be as quiet as he could.

It wasn't enough, apparently, because after a moment he was joined by Erik, who wrapped his arms around Charles absently and looked out over the dark island in contented silence with him.

"I revived Sofia, before the big celebration at the Boneyard," Charles said. "That's why I was late to meet you up at the cliff. I didn't stick around, but I saw it again. Mutants who can fly. Before they're reoriented in their bodies, before they even understand what's happened or who they are."  
"Their first instinct is to take to the air," Erik mused. Charles could feel Erik's deep-rooted approval.  
"We really are a species," Charles said stupidly. "We really are intractably, fundamentally different. We always had been. It shames me to say it, but when I was young, I always hoped we would one day be seen as--" he waved a dismissive hand. "Normal."  
He took a sip of his tea and Erik kissed his neck. "Not to explain your own feelings to you," he murmured. "But I knew you when you were younger. You wanted mutants to be happy, and you thought that what would make us happy was acceptance. Because you never felt accepted yourself. But you never wanted anything less for me than happiness, and you never wanted us to be anything less than exceptional. What was the name of that school of yours? Xavier's School for Normal Youngsters, was it?"

Charles tilted his head, partly in concession to Erik's logic and partly in concession to the grazing of lips just behind where his jaw met his ear.  
"I suppose it's the usual anxiety," he said apologetically. "That we've wasted so much time. I should have woken up earlier."  
"Moira wouldn't have let us waste more time than we needed to figure ourselves out. And I'm as guilty as you are in that respect. I needed you to show me what we were, and I needed to take a long time after that to understand what we could be, outside of my massive, debilitating paranoia. And there you were, after the passage of decades, to--how did you put it the other night, in your head? Pick up, where I faltered."

They looked out over the island together. Rolling expanses of green, littered with lights. More all the time, but never polluting the crystalline sky; now occasionally shimmering with the borealis effect that the Beaubier twins produced, or another of the hundreds of thousands of breathtakingly spectacular mutations. Charles understood why Scott wanted his little lunar paradise, but he wouldn't change this view, quite literally, for the world.  
"You're saying we're even," Charles said, turning in Erik's arms. Another excellent view.  
"Well," Erik said, leaning in. "I think you owe me one game of chess. But who's counting?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK:
> 
> X of Swords, long story short, was a bit of a wild goose chase wherein Krakoa got drawn into Apocalypse's family drama from prehistory. Blah blah blah ancient prehistoric mutant society blah blah blah his WIFE yadda yadda Arrako is another sentient island and a ton of mutant have been trapped there in a horrible enslaved dystopia ruled by the--I think--mask that Apocalypse's wife wore? Annihilation? Anyways Krakoa wrecked shit at the contest between the two islands which was sort of like one of those things generals do in like the Illiad where they duel instead of the whole two armies fighting each other? And Saturnyne in Otherworld officiated the duel and it was Tarot themed and buckwild. One of the concessions they had to make was that Apocalypse had to return to the other island, and since Jean gave up her spot on the council to mount a rescue mission and revive the X-Men, now there are two vacancies.
> 
> Oh, right, and Sinister led a fake suicide squad mission into Amenth to try to sabotage the opposing champions but really to steal some shit he wants and the way Amenth fucks with resurrection protocols seems concerning.
> 
> If you would like an actual explanation of X of Swords you are clearly in the wrong fan fiction. MORE IMPORTANTLY Scott and Jean saved everyone Scott and recognized that both Magneto and the Prof are his DADS. Before the entire Council. Dads. This, coupled with the way the Prof called Lorna "child" in X-Factor 4, makes everything worth it.
> 
> Fabian Cortez showed up in S.W.O.R.D. #1 and it was the very pinnacle of X-Men humor. I tried to make this joke with Exodus a bit in a previous chapter, where I imagine Magneto can only possibly be very uncomfortable with the way he has like, worshippers, but Exodus is somehow the chill one. Fabian was almost his X-Men TAS persona, just totally slobbery and horrific, and Magneto cringing over it was beautiful. He also pulled a satellite into geosynchronous orbit over Krakoa without breaking a sweat.
> 
> I make a lot of reference to Aldous Huxley's Island, where Huxley posits a vaguely orientailst (can I say orientalist if it's south asian?) theoretical philosophy around a fictional south asian island that's figured out how to be happy and raise happy, fulfilled people. The book ends when the neighboring island, a capitalist hellscape with a ruthless dictator, uses his inroads with the island's prince to take over. It's all very sad and philosophical and involves a shit ton of drugs, and Magneto referenced it in the now infamous X-Men #4 and I've been thinking about it ever since. Magneto reads Huxley???????? Does he read all the drugs bits and just think 'I probably have too much trauma to drop acid, but the rest of this advice seems sound'?
> 
> Wind Dancer AKA Sofia Mantega was revived just before the second big onscreen mutant bash, this time described as more of a 'mutant prom' by Northstar's human boyf Kyle. She flew. I did not like how she died, but god damn if I didn't love how she came back. On a wildly different note, in that same issue of X-Factor, Polaris jokes about daddy issues, and we have seen so much terrifyingly correctly used young people slang in the last year of X-Men and it's to the point where I can't even just (lovingly) blame Chip Zdarsky. It has been fun blending writing styles to fuse the way Magneto and Charles speak in different settings.
> 
> Oh and in terms of their past, which I mention in like a lot of these chapters, I've been slowly writing like the canon-but-let's-be-real-they're-dating version of Maggie and the Prof's stupidly long history.


	12. Mutant C-SPAN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably the dialogue heaviest thing yet but you know what, _mutants love a good meeting_

Sebastian Shaw was grinning menacingly through what looked like a broken nose and a nasty bruise on one eye. And the other eye was... missing. It somewhat diminished the effect of the smirk. Emma looked pleased, almost insufferably so, and Kate looked comfortable, which was all Charles was prepared to say. Erik pushed the Council to vote on whether or not to address whatever had happened to Shaw; frustrated at being out of the loop; but Charles' children revolted. Or, that is, Storm did, and with her defection and Mystique's disinterest, the votes no deadlocked the votes yes. And, again, Charles understood why. Somewhere in all of this was their revenge on Shaw for what he'd done to Kate. And Charles was still committed to letting that play out, so they'd just have to do this Council session with whatever was going on in the Spring seats shoved aside for the moment. 

* _He looks like he's about to keel over,_ * Erik said in Charles' mind, removing his helmet.  
* _You could try to sound less pleased,_ * Charles replied.  
* _I'm actually not. Did they remove his powers? Why are we not involved in this?_ *  
Charles shrugged, mentally, conveying what he could of his summation of their circumstances. They had more important matters, though. Jean and Scott wouldn't take up Council positions, they had to find alternatives. And alternatives that would be palatable to a currently fractious Council.

"All right," Charles said. "I can't say I'm comfortable with this, for, a number of reasons... is--is that _my_ chair? When did you--no. Another time. Let's get back to addressing the two vacant seats. I'm of course open to suggestions, but I think the simplest thing would be to let Winter and Spring handle the matter internally--"  
"--Oh no you fucking don't," Mystique said. "You're crazy if you think we're going to let you _gain_ a seat."  
"Oh, hell yes," Sinister said, metallic singsong voice already grating. "I sense drama."  
"It's not as if she doesn't have a point," Shaw said. "We all know how to count."

* _For example, I count one eye,_ * Erik thought, and his face flashed amusement for a moment.

Shaw, who wasn't privy to Erik's thoughts, gestured across the room. "Twelve seats. Three of you over there, now minus Jean Grey, consider yourselves the Professor's, what? Teacher's pets? And you people accuse _me_ of nepotism. The wacky, self-obsessed, wild card table over here is dominated by whatever inane thing Sinister wants this week, it's a write-off. One more for Charles on our table; our esteemed Red Queen. That's four. Five, of course, for the Professor himself, which brings us to you, Lehnsherr."  
Shaw smiled at Magneto, who offered a toothy sneer in return.  
"The Winter table was supposed to be the seat of contention. The three antithetical pillars of mutant philosophy. You, Charles, and Apocalypse, who is now absent. I think we all know how much of a con that was, now, don't we?"  
"If you have an accusation to make--" Erik began, voice low.  
"--It's not an accusation, Lehnsherr, it's a statement of fact. You two were pitched as opposing voices on this Council. If memory serves, and it does, you've voted the same way on twenty eight of the last thirty votes. And one of the differentiations was over letting Sinister go with on his little suicide mission. I _literally_ haven't seen you two apart since I moved here. Where is the supposed great ideological rift? What exactly is the difference between the two of you?"

Charles and Erik exchanged a bemused look.  
"I know how to delegate," Charles said with a crooked smile as they both turned back to face Shaw.

"You've had control of this sham government from the jump, and we should all have walked out during the first session when we all realized you two were communicating telepathically," Shaw summed up. "Any defenses?"  
Kurt raised his hand.  
"Any defenses from someone who would not identify as a child of Charles Xavier?"  
Kurt lowered his hand.  
"Right," Sinister said. "So it sounds to me that the tables _not_ effected by the departures should be the ones to select the new members."  
"Shouldn't you be angrier about this?" Mystique asked Exodus, who seemed relatively nonplussed.  
"Why would I be?" he asked, confused. "I have known about Magneto's interest in Xavier for thirty years."

* _Oh, good,_ * Charles said lightly in Erik's head. * _Any theories on that?_ * Erik's mind flashed guilt for a moment, and Charles had to stop himself from physically laughing. Apparently Erik would occasionally seek a bit of advice from his--what was the word? _Flunkies?_

Mystique was almost curious now. "It doesn't upset you at all that you spent a massive part of your life fighting at Magneto's behest, occasionally fighting _Xavier_ , and all the while they were working together?"  
Exodus shrugged. "The island is doing well. Magneto has proven the validity of his legacy. So he's got a weak spot for a telepath. Every other leader of the mutant revolution seems to."  
"You can just say Scott when you mean Scott," Kurt said with a wry grin. "He's not being subtle about it any longer."  
"I did mean Scott," Exodus added, with his oddly earnest, serious way of speaking. Usually a bit intimidating, but not, it appeared, in the confines of this conversation.

"So none of you care? It's, what? In the past?" Mystique asked.  
"If you want to go dredging up the past," Erik said, a little darkly. "I have a few conversations I've been meaning to have with you about some frankly egregious crimes against mutantdom you committed in the eighties."  
"They're not crimes against mutantdom if it's just you who is the injured party," Emma said. "That's like saying anything bad that happens to me is misogynistic."  
"Emma, you say that all the time," Kate pointed out, with her upturned smile. "You called the weather misogynistic because it was too warm to wear a fur cape. And Erik's right, I was there when Mystique and the Brotherhood arrested him; they blew a hole in the Holocaust Museum and he'd done nothing wrong. It was horrible."

" _Nothing_ wrong is a bit of a stretch, don't we think?" Shaw asked.  
"No," Exodus and Charles answered at the same time. They exchanged an odd glance.

"You two should start a club," Sinister said. "Magneto Apologists of Krakoa."  
Mystique looked a little ticked off, to say the least.  
"You were a wanted international terrorist, Erik. Not to mention that at the time I arrested you, you were committing multiple counts of illegal immigration, identity fraud and tax evasion--"  
"--Oh, I'm _sure_ that's what Reagan wanted me for," Erik said, voice bordering on full-on malicious, "the taxes on my teacher's salary at Xavier's. What a perfectly proportional response."  
"Wait, you weren't paying your taxes?" Charles interjected.  
"I didn't legally exist, Charles," Magneto replied.  
"Do you think the IRS cares? That was a seriously irresponsible thing to do, if they audited the school do you have any idea how much danger we'd have been in? Technically the expenditures on the jet were hidden as a very extensive swimming facility we _obviously didn't have_."

They exchanged some telepathic back and forth, but Erik rightfully pointed out that this wasn't the time. Apparently the rest of the Council disagreed.

"Thank God for amnesty," Emma said, rubbing her temples. "I think with Apocalypse's departure that means there isn't a single person on our Council who hasn't violated the US tax code."  
"I sure as shit wasn't paying taxes on the Xavier estate when it inexplicably moved to the middle of Central Park," Kate added unhelpfully. "But I thought we were flat broke."  
She gave Charles a loving but accusatory glance, and Charles shrugged amiably.  
"Actually, I always filed a month in advance," Exodus said.  
"Really?" Sinister asked, and sounded genuinely intrigued.  
"No," he said. "But in my defense, on paper I died during the Crusades."  
"Sorry, rewind," Cypher said from his perch. "Did _Mystique_ really just try to malign someone for committing identity fraud? The woman whose mutant powers are _literally_ identity fraud?"

"And thank you, _Cypher_ , for piping up," Shaw said. "I'd forgotten to add that the speaker for Krakoa, who also carries a full fucking _veto_ in this Council, is another one of Charles' bloody children. What if he's just making up nonsense for Krakoa?"  
"I think if I was mistranslating Krakoa's wishes, you'd notice," Douglas said, a little annoyed at having been dragged out of his daydream about his new wife. "You know, earthquakes and mass psychic drain. That sort of thing."  
"A ridiculous assertion," Magneto agreed.  
"Almost as ridiculous as the idea that we need Charles _and_ his lap dog on the Council together," Shaw fired back.  
"I was expecting the discussion over two new seats to be among the longest in Council history," Kurt said. "I was not expecting it to be this childish."

"I agree, Kurt," Charles said. "I think we've indulged enough problematizing. I'm going to go with whatever the Council needs to feel whole and secure in itself, but I do ask that the new seats recognize a few basic principles. The whole point was to try to cut a swathe through the different segments of mutant culture. Likely candidates should represent something unrepresented."  
"We've been talking and we'd like to nominate someone who lost their powers on M-day," Kurt said, gesturing between himself and Ororo, who nodded. "It's frankly insane that none of the twelve are among that group."

"That's... actually a good idea," Emma said, reluctant to draw herself into the discussion.  
"Charles and I were actually both depowered, technically," Erik said. "But, yes, I can see your point."  
"I agree," Mystique said. "Fred Dukes."  
"Absolutely not," Storm said.  
"Oh boy," Sinister said, comically exaggerating an aside whisper to Exodus. "Time for the pretty mutants to find an excuse to exclude the uglies."  
Kurt laughed. "Blob is currently running the Green Lagoon, and rather expertly. If that place falls to pieces, Logan's down time is increased by a factor of four. Sage ran the numbers on what that means for the island, but I bet you can guess how many more Council meetings that would lead to."  
"Fred Dukes stays where he is," Sinister said, slamming a fist down as if outraged by the suggestion that Blob be pulled from his noble duty.  
"Agreed. Callisto," Ororo countered. "Morlocks also deserve representation here."  
"Seconded," Emma and Kate said at the same time.  
"You must obviously realize I'd veto that," Shaw said, with a sort of bored drawl.

"We could give Julio Rictor a seat, as a sort of successor to Apocalypse," Charles offered. "But which seat? He's too young for the Winter table, our whole point was the wisdom of experience, disregarding whatever nonsense Sebastian Shaw has to say about opposing viewpoints."  
"Give him to Summer, then," Kurt said. "I've always found Rictor to be a very dependable man."  
"We could always offer the other to Namor, as a way to bring Atlantis into the fold. It'd at the very least increase our UN presence," Charles added.  
"Too many men," Emma complained. Charles inclined his head thoughtfully.  
"And one too many men Emma's had a near world-ending affair with," Mystique cut in. Emma said nothing, but Erik recognized her _filing-that-away_ expression.  
"This is going to take a million fucking years," Sinister muttered to a stony-faced Exodus, whose jaw clenched in silent agreement or extreme annoyance.

"No," Shaw said. "I am absolutely not going to allow anyone with even a whiff of Charles Fucking Xavier on that Summer seat."  
Kate Pryde and Kurt laughed at the same time.  
"Have fun finding someone on this island who doesn't have strong positive feelings about Professor X," Kitty said, twirling a knife in her hand.  
"The man who died for our sins and resurrects us all," Kurt added, over-dramatic.  
"Half the island has died already," Shaw said. "If that singles people out for sainthood in your weird religion, you're going to struggle to memorize a canon."  
"Not you," Storm said, and let the silence remain for a moment. "You haven't died. You haven't risked your life for Krakoa at all, yet, have you?"  
"He looks close to it, though, doesn't he?" Magneto asked, eyes never leaving Shaw. "Maybe we give him a couple minutes, see if we can't make a martyr for Krakoa of him yet."

"That was blatantly a threat against a fellow Council member," Shaw said.

"It wasn't a _threat_ ," Erik said. "I'm not going to _do_ anything, I'm just going to sit here and wait to see if you're bleeding internally, you certainly look pale enough. Maybe sell tickets."  
"Show of hands, who says we strike Erik's last four sentences from the record and forget all about it?" Charles asked, raising his hand.  
Storm, Emma, Kate, Nightcrawler, Sinister, Mystique and Exodus raised their hands.  
"Motion passes," Kate said, singsong, waving her knife airily.  
"So we're back to square one," Kurt muttered.  
"Not quite. Kate's accidentally solved our dilemma," Mystique said. "Did no one notice? _Have fun finding someone on this island who doesn't have strong positive feelings about Professor X_ ," she parroted, recording-like, in Kate's voice. "It's obvious, right? What about the Arakkoans?"

Everyone on the Council exchanged a look. Erik and Charles exchanged another slightly obvious telepathic conversation.  
"They're not interested," Charles said. "As of right now. We need to wait and see, with them. And I mean that on a _Krakoan_ time frame. I'm willing to entertain the idea, and we'll keep a line open, but we need the Council to be whole now."  
"And if we don't want to just take your word for it?"  
"Feel free to swim over there yourself, Sebastian," Charles said back. "I can lend you some of my old scuba gear to go with the chair."

"Meow. All right, but seriously," Sinister said. "I have things I need to be doing with my day."  
"Reconvene tomorrow," Charles said, sighing, rubbing his temples. "All in favor?"  
The first unanimous decision of the reduced Council.

Emma and Kate wheeled Shaw away. Charles stood swiftly, walking out without checking to ensure that Erik was somewhere behind him. Exodus gave him an odd incline of the head which Charles returned before thinking, and he was free.  
They walked through the forest lost in thought.  
"I really don't want fucking Namor," Magneto said, emphatic but a little tired. It had been a long day. "And if you even so much as think about doing any more work today, I swear I'll make another no-space, trap us in it, bury it at the bottom of Krakoa and throw away the gate."

"Remember this morning, when you said I was a hopeless romantic?" Charles asked, with a wry grin.  
"Words I stand by," Erik said, kissing Charles' hand. "Only you could show up on an island full of vicious creatures and subjugated, Darwinist, survival-of-the-fittest ancient mutants with flowers and a smile."  
"Isca likes you," Charles said.  
"Isca doesn't like anyone," Erik said. "I'm not sure what the rest of the Arakkoans are like, but if they're as unemotional as her we're in for trouble. She was right about the Council being a child government, though."  
"Bei seems a lovely woman."  
"She's a half a foot taller than you, she carries a giant sword, and she's murdered more people than me. By a lot. You like her for _Douglas_?"  
"Yes," Charles said. "Well, no more than any of Douglas' other interesting choices, at any rate." Erik rolled his eyes to the heavens; not so much in mockery of Charles as in a mock-plea to whatever God might hear him and agree that the kids needed a bit of a seeing-to.

They were at the door of the House of M. It was slightly closer, and now that Lorna had moved out and Erik had patched it up they were slowly ramping up their use of it. Erik opened the door with a gesture and the gesture fluidly changed to invite Charles in. Erik was behind him, and swooped in for a kiss when he noticed Callisto at his table, leaning back in a metal chair.  
"Hi, Charley," Callisto said. "Hullo, Mags."  
"Callisto," Erik said, nodding at her in a polite greeting. "Why the hell are you in my house."  
"Sorry," she said, gesturing between the two. "Not interrupting again, am I?"  
Charles smiled. He still had mixed feelings about the Crucible, but Callisto seemed undeniably lighter today, with her full powers back. He was glad to see her, and had a sneaking suspicion that this was the real reason why she was here. "I resurrected you, what, two hours ago? Is there something wrong with your powers?"  
"Not looking for a refund, Charley, don't worry," Callisto said.  
Erik barked a laugh. "Not nostalgic for those green arms of yours?"

"Yeah, well," she said, dismissive. "They make it too difficult to give old men like you the finger. Emma sent me. Two words: Hellfire Gala. I assume you don't need plus-ones?"  
"We've workshopped the guest list," Erik said. "I wouldn't wish an invitation on my worst enemy. And most of them are already going."  
"That bad? Maybe I shouldn't go."  
"Oh, please do," Charles begged. "Say you will. I promised myself no more Galas, after the last one. I need emotional support."  
Callisto laughed. This felt vaguely nostalgic; as usual Erik had picked up on the right word. Charles and Callisto had an odd friendship, where they occasionally showed up to save each other's lives, and resolutely didn't talk about their personal lives. Charles considered her one of his favorite non-X-Men people. When Charles had died on Krakoa, Callisto kept watch over his body until Erik came to take him away. Erik remembered her watching him with more understanding than most.  
"Charles is fond of making promises he can't keep. There are always more fucking galas," Erik said.  
Callisto handed them a letter and it felt rather like being served a court summons.  
"When Emma Frost beckons," Erik muttered, and Callisto was out the door.

"We could get out of this," Erik said, waving the letter in the air before tossing it absently down onto the table. Charles eyed him with a be-realistic expression each was well used to from the other by now, removing Cerebro and placing it on its little pedestal in Erik's living room. Somewhere below, Erik's cradle for one of his precious backups laid dormant. It wasn't a good idea, security-wise, to leave two in one place for too long. But, of course, Charles couldn't exactly stay away.  
"We have to go over--"  
"Not another word, Charles," Erik said, kissing him. It was, as it often was, a distraction tactic, so that Charles wouldn't remember that Erik had recklessly endangered the whole X-Mansion with frivolous tax fraud. And Charles, as he often did, knew this full well when he kissed back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god so much to reference uhhhHHHHHH speedrun:
> 
> Marauders #16 for most of the Council stuff. Shaw got FUCKED UP. Marauders #17 for the Callisto bits, which also call back to Excalibur Vol 3 (2004) by Chris Claremont, because I'm re-reading them and writing about them and I love Callisto. X-Men #16 because Magneto lovingly and somewhat apologetically introduced Charles Xavier as a _hopeless romantic_. Also Jean and Scott had a heart to heart with their dads.
> 
> The X-Mansion randomly moved to the middle of Central Park, and at the time Kitty Pryde was in charge of managing Charles' estate (see X-Men: Gold except don't because it sucks). Exodus is funny to me, no I won't elaborate. Charles and Erik both lost their powers on M-Day AKA that time Wanda said no more mutants and a buncha people lost their powers, but it was basically quickly resolved for both of them, and it was much more of a long term thing for others, including Callisto and Prodigy et cetera. Emma had an affair with Namor in Avengers vs X-Men that helped lead to Scott going Dark Phoenix. Mystique did arrest Magneto in a holocaust museum in Uncanny X-Men uhhh 199? WHEW.
> 
> PS: as to that line about enemies, Magneto has a lot, and I'm sure we'll see a few of the lower ranking ones at the gala. He keeps a numerical list tucked away in his mind. Most are unsurprising, except that Forge is on there, a recent addition, and a few hundred spots ahead of where he really ought to be.


	13. X-Girlfriends

Erik was waiting up for Charles. They had their schedules backwards. Charles' resurrection break landed right when Erik had to get going to help Beast and the Captains coordinate new island defense strategies, so he set the kettle and waited, content to at least see the man before their day got away from them.

"I heard from Lilandra," Charles said, kicking off his shoes. Storm was off-island, so there was no one to stop the rain. Erik had anticipated him, the fire was going. He looked up, supremely unimpressed, and then flicked back to check the front of his paper with a look like he was testing a hypothesis.

"And a happy Valentine's day to you, too, Charles. You know, I've changed my mind. Hopeless, yes. Romantic?"

He made a face as if he were still mulling it over, accompanied by a half-half gesture, and went back to reading as Charles sat around the corner from him at the kitchen table.

"Failing marks, I'm sure. Jesus, is it February?"

The exhaustion behind Charles' tone softened Erik considerably.

"I only know because I'm literally holding the post. And of course I suppose there's no sense hoping you told the bitch to take a hike."

"The _bitch_ has saved my life more times than I've cared to count. Let's not be rude. And our daughter was in danger. I've handed the rescue over to the X-Men."

"Charles, the most powerful mutants in the world cannot be on standby every time Daddy's Little _War Criminal_ needs rescuing."

"No. But just this once."

"Isn't that Lilandra's modus operandi, especially with you? To be given an inch and take a mile?"

"You mean, to be given some romantic affection and manage to somehow procure a child? You could stand to be subtler, Erik. But yes, I feel that the extent of my parental obligation to Xandra is very little."

"You're a glorified sperm donor. I've heard the chatter. The Shi'ar want to annex this solar system. They all want a bit of that X-Gene, now that they've seen what it can do."

If Charles was at all fazed by Erik's blunt turns of phrase, he didn't show it. Water off a duck's back for one of the world's finest diplomats.

"Exactly why it's important to have the Empress in our debt, rather than the reverse. The Shi'ar will be powerful allies, but we have to ensure they understand the terms. Allies, not colonists."

There was clearly more to argue, but it was still early, and they had things to do. Erik on his way out, Charles on his way in. They'd see each other at night, they'd blocked out a whole few hours in anticipation of a rough week ahead, and Erik felt a bit like a domesticated cat as Charles kissed him on the cheek and sent him on his way.

When they reconvened, they picked up where they left off, leaned against the counter. Erik looked out over the island sunset. Charles looked too, fondly. Sometimes Erik looked back on his life and could recognize that Charles was the brief coming up for air of a man being waterboarded. Dark, horrible places and evil people and cruelty and every once in a while, like sunlight, Charles Xavier. Shelter. The color yellow, somehow. Sunbeams, through his study window, when Erik had overstayed his welcome, or perhaps that garish chair for the away missions. Charles' gentle, understated mannerisms and his bright eyes belying the truth. His voice, which was the closest thing Erik had to a conscience. Just to be masochistic, or maybe just to banish it, he asked.

"Was there ever a moment where..?"

"Where, what?"

"Where it was just you and her."

"No. Never."

"I only ask because she's, you know."

"A space princess. The mother of my daughter. No. It's never been like that, with me, for anyone but you. She--we were obviously close, but I was never anthing more than friends with her, and when she propositioned me, I was lonely, and far from home. And I'd resolved myself by then not to see you, not that way, though it never worked. Foolish, on my part, but I--God, Erik, you know all of this."

"Yes, but tell me anyways."

"You're such an egomaniac," Charles said, kissing Erik's hand. "You know perfectly well how besotted with you I've always been, even when it was totally hopeless, even when we couldn't stand to look at each other."

Erik hummed, thoughtful, assenting. "Perhaps I just enjoy the sound of your voice."

Charles, in his absently affectionate manner, splayed Erik's long, callused fingers out; watching them move wherever he put them in the air, touching all the different textures. Erik was catlike, reveling in the sensation of Charles' deft fingers cleverly handling the muscles in his forearm, in his palm.

"I've had girlfriends. Before you, and in all those horrible spaces in between. But they were never anything more than friends who knew perfectly well my situation with regards to you. You know that, because you can see it every time I've come running back to you, even after promising I wouldn't. Just like _I_ know your attempts to move on were equally doomed and tragic, if not more so."

"Excuse me?" Erik said, pulled from his lulled stupor by indignation.

"What's-her-name. The sailor. I know perfectly well that she left you after you muttered the wrong name in bed."

"Oh, please. Like you've never--"  
"--I haven't, actually, but I've always been the better multitasker."

"Not when it comes to me," Erik said, voice dipping low.

"No," Charles agreed. "No, not when it comes to you."

But, of course, that had been what Charles was getting at. He'd never let go with another person on this Earth. Not that it excused his juvenile behavior with the girlfriends he occasionally took shelter in, as a younger man; first trying to prove something, and then after Erik trying to run from something; but Erik had never really been jealous, because it wasn't real. It quite literally couldn't be. Charles was gay, or as gay as telepaths were able to be. And besides, as much as Charles had occasionally in his long history wished it weren't so, the undeniable truth was that Erik had always been the love of his life.

It was even more undeniable when Erik kissed him.

Two hours later, they were lounging by the fireplace, eating takeout dinner, and Charles was taking the rare opportunity to lie down on the couch in a very unseemly way, reading the new Piketty he figured would easily double as a half-decent murder weapon, when he bolted upright.

"Alettys 'Lee' Forrester," he announced, snapping the economics shut. He'd forgotten her name earlier, or pretended to.

Erik, who had been reading a book Abigail Brand had recommended to him about cosmic-force physics, peered at Charles over the cover.

"Amelia Vought. Are we playing _name a woman_ , or is it your turn on the pity microphone?"

"Amelia's a closed loop. I slept with her, and then you did. No, you screwed us over with Lee. You put us in the degrees-of-separation game."

Magneto seemed calm for a moment, and then paled.

"Lee was Scott's ex-girlfriend. Scott's slept with Jean, Emma, and Logan, and in turn some combination therein have slept with the remainder of my children. With a few exceptions, thanks _so_ much. Oh, and Scott also was with Madelyn, who also slept with Alex, so Lorna--"

"--Yes, yes, no need to spell it out," Erik said. Sheepishly, he added, "I suppose now would be a bad time to mention that I think I slept with the Wasp once during the whole Beyonder debacle? I don't know if I should count it because the Beyonder had bit of a strange preoccupation with sex, if you remember."

"Oh, God, let's chalk it up to him. Jesus, Hank Pym's wife. And you're mad about _Lal_."

"Yes, well, I'm not even on a real name basis with Janet van Whatever," Erik pointed out.

"Shall we count how many humans you've been with, darling? Compared to how many mutants?"

"That's unfair and you know it. There are, what, a handful of mutants our age or older? And three of them are En Sabah Nur, Namor, and Wolverine."

Charles made a face, laughing to himself, and Erik kissed him stubbornly on the forehead.

\-----------------------------------------

Despite their anticipation of a rough work-week, there were belated celebrations at hand at the Green Lagoon the next night. The bar was hopping, packed to the gills with mutantdom's finest, and Erik found a space at the bar which managed to clear itself in his path. Charles was passing off their gift to Cypher, some frightfully expensive wine and the keys to one of the Paris properties, with the added promise that they'd not convene the Council tomorrow. Everyone spoiled Cypher. Douglas Ramsey was grinning, a little pink, and Erik was content to watch the crowd until Charles returned.

"I hear a few feathers were ruffled over the X-Men going to Shi'ar space," Emma Frost said, sidling up next to him from who knew where. The only woman who could surprise you wearing all white Dior.

Erik hummed. "I don't like the idea of cozying up to space imperialists. We're better than them."

"You know I agree, darling, but of course that's not the real reason you disapprove."

Erik glared at her, but she continued drinking from her little cocktail glass with the miniature umbrella, unfazed. Finally, he assented.

"If anyone mentions another damned ex, I'm going to have one of my patented breakdowns."

Emma laughed. "Oh, is the great Mutant Master of Magnetism insecure?"

"You try being with someone who's had multiple, historically recognized partners, one of whom is literally seen as his soulmate, who are all by the way very notably different to me and--"  
Emma was smiling knowingly over the brim of her cup, platinum-blonde eyebrow raised as he dug his hole deeper.  
"Yes, ah, how long ago should I have stopped talking?"

"We have far too much in common," Emma said, diplomatically. Her eyes flickered somewhere else in the crowd. "All right, Romeo, this is adieu. And as a friendly heads up," she added, turning and pointing in the other direction in the crowd, "your poor man has been made to drink from whatever's in Bei's cup."

Emma went over to join Ororo and Kate, who seemed like they meant business. They were doing something in Madripoor tomorrow morning, of course, and looking over at Charles, Erik could only hope it would be a late morning.

Charles was trying not to double over, hiding an extreme bout of sputtering behind Cerebro. Bei looked pleased, as much as anyone had seen her look pleased when she wasn't staring at Cypher. The good Professor said his goodbyes and a final round of his congratulations, as Cypher clapped him affectionately on the back, and preternaturally headed back towards Erik.

"I need something to drink," he said, faintly desperate. Erik handed him his and ordered another from Anole, tending bar under the wary eye of Blob. "Two more," Charles said, interrupting him.  
"That bad?"  
"Apparently Arrakkoans drink paint thinner for fun. Actually, fun is the wrong word. They drink it _regularly_ , they don't know what fun is. I'm thinking we should kick our diplomatic overtures to Wolverine."  
"Sentences previously unsaid in human history," Erik mused, and Charles laughed. He downed Erik's drink, thunking the heavy glass back down onto the bar surface, and shuddered, sticking his tongue out childishly.

The next two arrived, and they got to talking about something or other, and ordered another two, and another. The party was lovely, Kate came up to them and gave them both a startling hug which Erik very much did not want or deserve, except that it was _Kate_ , and he'd always have a soft spot for her. He'd housed a bunch of humans on Island M for her, as a matter of fact, which she thanked him profusely for. Charles had a bit of business to conduct with Beast, and Erik had a toast with Peter Quinn.

That reminder somewhere in his mind that he used to be feared and respected was going off like a damned klaxon, but Douglas Ramsey's smile in the distance seemed to put all of that to rest.

Some inordinate amount of time later, Erik felt Charles dipping into his powers to pull the helmet off. When was the last time he'd done that in public, on Krakoa? And when the helmet came off, a second revelation hit.

"Charles, my God, you're drunk," Erik said, astonished. Charles' features were charmingly pink, well on their way to matching the hue of his telepathic powers.

Charles shot a glance over at Cypher, who raised his drink knowingly, and winked.

"And you aren't?" Charles asked, pleased to keep the slurring out of his voice.

"Oh, I'm _hammered_ , but you... I haven't seen you this drunk in decades."

Erik was preoccupied with touching Charles' chest as Charles leaned back against the bar. "Oh, darling, don't be so melodramatic."

"Mm, how many decades too late is that warning?"

"More than I've not been this drunk for," Charles said, frowning as he confused himself. "I'd be more precise, but our actual physical ages suddenly elude me. Ask me again when I'm sober and I've got a flowchart."

"It's very upsetting we can't count contiguously," Erik sympathized. "Too many years lost dead on _someone's_ side."

"Or de-aged! Oh, but you made a charming infant."

Charles was messing with him, not so much teasing as a light, nostalgic letter-pushing. That flicker of eye contact between them, Charles' you're-in-on-it-but-only-you-and-I eyebrow quirk. There were many expressions on Charles' face Erik coveted. This was undoubtedly one. The way Charles looked at Erik, and only Erik, with that cocktail of desire and concern, a begrudging sort of allowance for love in the furrow of his eyebrows, the pursing of his lips, the gradual softening of his tone, the newer, lighter, happier thing where he'd smile with only the baggage of weariness behind it. And now this, Charles, cheerily toasted at someone's wedding, resting his arm on Erik's shoulder without a care for who saw how close they'd moved, prodding with old in-jokes.

Erik would lay down his life to be inside Charles' little circle of two. The way Charles tilted his head to the side in contemplation, or tilted it back in ardor, Erik imagined his dark, bloody hands cradling Charles' handsome neck. Beautiful, so beautiful, not just his body but the way he inhabited it.

And now Charles was definitely pink, shaking his head to clear it of thoughts inherited from Erik's brain, and Erik couldn't suppress a grin.

"Let's get out of here," Erik said. "I want you to myself."

God, if that wasn't the theme of the fucking week, Erik thought, and Charles laughed a little bitterly, but none of it directed at Magneto, who took to whispering obscenities in his ear.

"I'm not so drunk I can't protest your sudden brazenness. I don't want any children overhearing any of that."

Erik's lip quirked. "Charles, we switched to French four sentences ago."

Charles tilted his head. Chances of being overheard by someone who spoke French at _Cypher's_ wedding bash were still significant, but probably very few of the children spoke it. Well, a pat on the back to whichever of them made that subconscious call.

"You did," Erik replied, in answer to Charles' stray thought. "I'd have picked Hebrew, put you on the back pedal. You're too comfortable in your Eurocentric education."

"Says the European. I honestly can't tell if drink makes you more or less insufferable," Charles mused. "You're quite lucky you're so handsome. They haven't even cut the cake yet, you know."

"Yes, I'm sure that'd sober you right up," Erik replied, tilting Charles' head up. They were very much in each other's space, with Erik crowding his professor against the bar and Charles sat precariously in a stool. "Home, or I'm going to break some unspoken personal rules about public displays of affection."

Charles smiled crooked, tapped the side of the bar without looking. Erik's eyes flickered down. Knife-engraved onto the wood of the bar, in bold Krakoan letters, read: _Make more mutants!_

"Oh, now who's being brazen?" Erik murmured.

The telepath seemed ready with some demur response or other, but his eyes flickered to the entrance of the bar, and betrayed a sort of momentary concern which set Erik's nerves alight.

"Actually, you know, you're quite right. It's time we took our leave. No one will notice if we take the back door out a little early."

Erik's head was turning to follow that concerned expression's path when Charles took him by the lapels and kissed him. Everyone was paying attention to the band, Dazzler and her Resurrections, at any rate.

It did Charles a modicum of good to know he'd avoided a moderate crisis solely through the power of a bit of persuasive action, as Amahl Farouk stepped into the Green Lagoon. Erik followed him out through the back path without so much as another cursory look around.

In the morning, Charles nursed a hangover as they prepared to go to Emma's unveiling in Madripoor. Mutant attire, to prove a point, and they proved terribly popular upon arrival. Children swarmed he and Erik, and Charles' heart melted as Erik picked a little boy up onto broad shoulders. Erik was so beautiful, not just in his commanding features, but in the way they lent themselves to a painstaking gentleness, like a self-domesticated Bengal tiger. Charles could watch him for hours, used to, when they'd first met. He used to just follow this man around, to catch a glimpse of the person behind the mask. The person who now stood at his side almost constantly. What a difference a few decades made.

It was a beautiful day, if a bit hangover-unfriendly, with an open sky and a fresh sea breeze flourishing through the port city. They joked about Emma's deep reserves of charm and even deeper pockets, undercutting the Homines Verendi supremacists who used to maintain a more stringent control of the strange metropolis. Together, they cut into the crowd which had gathered in the square outside Krakoa's newest investment, aware that they stood out, but happy to do so.

Shaw was present, in his capacity as Hellfire's middle man; still in Charles' chair, which brightened Erik's day considerably until he noticed that up at the podium also stood Proteus, Moira's boy. Emma was saying something about the free hospital as a healer of divides between Krakoa and Madripoor.

"Charles, why is Proteus here?" Erik asked, watching the stage.  
"Oh," Charles said, lips tightening. "Hmm."

"It's our pleasure to open a free hospital as a gesture of goodwill between the people of our nations," Emma continued. "It is named for one of mutantdom's most staunch human allies."

Proteus unveiled the plaque. Erik managed not to curse. "My God," he said simply.

The Doctor Moira MacTaggert Memorial Hospital.

Good fucking Lord, there was a statue. A _good_ statue. Charles' mind was projecting discomfort and distaste, at the false memorializing of someone who was both not human, and very much not dead. The two of them had to clap, politely, and Erik watched Charles perhaps a little too carefully, and swore vengeance on Emma somehow. He glared at her from the crowd, which seemed to be to her great amusement.

The edge had bled out of his jealousy, though, somewhere last night, between the Green Lagoon and the House of M.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so, mainly this is from:
> 
> X-Men #17 for the Lilandra/Xandra stuff.
> 
> New Mutants #15 for the Cypher celebration, where Charles and Erik could be seen prominently, mostly together until they go missing just as Farouk really comes into the scene.
> 
> Marauders #18 for Emma's massive flex on Erik, who has been nothing but helpful except for that one time he tried to kill her in Blue. Ancient history, by mutant standards, so she's definitely got other reasons for wanting to gauge Erik and Charles' reaction to the Moira thing.
> 
> The good ol' one-two-four-eight punch, AKA when one ex gets brought up the rest follow. I like to think that the only one Erik really liked was Gabrielle, and the rest he was always at least liminally jealous of but didn't have the time to care. Obviously he has really hated Moira in the past but for separate reasons. Well. 60-40. Charles; as a telepath and all-around less traumatized person; has never found Erik's sleeping around anything but hilarious.


End file.
